A Day At Parcel 6

We started off early as with previous visit as we are doing some rubber tapping. The yield is higher if tapped in the early morning due to the cooler weather (the latex coagulate slower). We can not take it to the max as these are only for trials. Tapping should be done before daylight (anytime after 1 am) and fixed to a regular time. Our helpers also found that we have to make a thicker cut, as opposed to the fine cut. Reason is that we do not tap these trees on a regular basis. I noticed that the leaves are falling for this area. Shall monitor how long it last. Our neighbor at the rear had stopped tapping due to the leave fall, they had turn the collection cup over to prevent water storage. We had a higher yield than the previous visit.
We had finished planting banana trees for the half lots. Today we planted more than 100 banana trees. Hoping to have a bounty of harvest. With a combined harvest, we hope it shall be feasible to ship it to the city for a higher value.

A check on the ground nuts shows goo results. Estimate maybe more than 90 % germinated. Ground nuts required low Nitrogen fertilizer, otherwise it shall form less nuts. We applied Chicken dung this time as we want the vegetative growth first, also we did side dress with a higher dosage as most probably is the only time we are fertilizing it.

Could only find 4 pumpkins germinated from our second seeding. Wondering what gone wrong wrong.
Check on those first seeding, was surprise that we found more, some had just germinated, having only 2 to 4 leafs. 
Am suspecting that the seed are hibernating and would not germinate due to insufficient moisture / water. This area did not experience much rain lately. Another option, we could try germinating, and transplant, buy with no water at site, the new plants might die off due to drought. Guess we shall wait for another 2 weeks to see if we have more germinates. In the mean time, planning to try other crops like Field Corn and Sweet potatoes, which are more drought resistance. Shall also source for more ground nuts seeds as we had ran out.

This parcel 6 is particularly windy. Most of the rubber plant-lets are blown side ways. Beginning to stake the plants but ran out of strings. Shall have to continue on the next visit. We need to straighten the plants so as to have a straight and clean trunk. This shall provide a bigger tapping area.
Hope to see better results on our next visit.

Planting Corn, not as easy as I think.

Planting Corn, I thought was easy. After my first failure of planting sweetcorn, I did more research and found more information that prepare me more, for my next trial.

Current planting technology involve lots of new technology and data. Weather plays a very important role as with any activities. Knowing the weather trend helps to reduce planting risk and increase yield. Long time ago, some clever planters devised a 'Planting Calender'. I was told these planting times had some how been incorporated into the Chinese calender. Planting calender, being geographically based, shall differs from location to location. I am still trying to find our local planting calender. Other factors affecting the calender most is the climate changes that we are currently experiencing. Another is the kind of hybrid that we intend to plant. The seeds that I had bought has a maturing date ranging from 45 to 78 days (am sure that there were no hybrids during those hay days).
Weather Forecast and trend for Keningau

Planting distance. Corn are preferably planted in blocks of minimum 100 to be effectively pollinated. As these are wind pollinated, there is a higher chances of pollination in blocks rather than in (just) rows. The optimum planting distance differs from location to location and types of seeds, it varies from 6 to 20 inches and 20 to 40 inches between rows. Planting depths also varies from 0.5 to 2 inches.

Land and soil. Land preparation, do a soil test to find out the soil condition. This is something that we had never done (village style). Plow the soil to a minimum of about 6 inches. Sweet corns require lots of nitrogen. Use a nitrogen rich fertilizer. Condition needs to be moist and hot for good germination (easy part). Found a cheap PH meter.

Next comes the weeding control. During the flowering stage, make sure the weeds are short. This shall secure higher pollination. Lots of sunshine, some water and some fertilizer. Wait for Harvest.