Soursop, Annona Muricata

Soursop, Annona Muricata, also know as Durian Belanda in Malaysia. We have a Soursop tree in our little farm, that wasn't planted intentional. I only noticed it a few months back and was told by our helpers that it's a Soursop tree. At one time, it was infected with caterpillars and the leaves were eaten off. We had the caterpillars removed manually and the tree quickly bounce back healthily.
Recently there were request for the soursop leaves as it's said to help in reducing high blood pressure. I myself tasted the tea, and find it refreshing with a nice aroma. A search on the internet, claims that it helps in insomnia, diarrhea and even claims that it cure certain cancer.
From my perspective, the soursop is drought resistance and hardy. It is a smaller tree, can be inter-crop with bigger trees like avocado (which we are working on) as it can tolerate growing in partial shade. This shall fit well into our rubber plantation (in-between terrace). I think there is a demand for soursop as fresh fruits and I don't think it's grown on a commercial scale in our area.

Since there is a tree in our farm, we are looking into ways to propagate it.
We had a few cutting made and see if it grows. Shall be looking for seeds and try germination. Looking for the sweet variety as we intend to plant it as fresh fruits. In the meantime shall also check out if there is a market segment for the leaves.

The Soursop tree next to the black water tank.

Had the tree pruned today and used the cuttings for propagation. Shall have update after my vacation. Stay tune for updates.

The Soursop cuttings with roots enhancer.

Our Soursop after pruning.

Starting to flower. We can most probably obtain scion for our grafting soon.

Project Agarwood / Gaharu

Agarwood, Eaglewood, Uod, Oodh, Gaharu or 沉香 are some of the names that I manage to find. Our Agarwood project was mooted after I discovered a couple of surviving small plant-lets surviving overgrown weeds and our herbicide spray. We managed to 'rescue' about 10 of the plants. This gave me the idea that since it's so hardy, we can plant this in our rubber plantation, on the high gradient slope, that we would not be able to plant any other trees.

  Our expectation is to use this as a supplementary crop, for land that we can not use. Plant and maintain it for 6 years and above, then inoculate it and harvest it after 2 more years in stages. The older the tree, the greater the wood volume and more resins after inoculation. From the details that I mange to gather, it should be a calculated risk if we manage to plant Agarwood with a very low cost and on land that is idle. I feel that Agarwood has been wrongly projected as a 'get rich fast' scheme, which I'm sure does not happen in agriculture. It's being linked to the word 'Millionaire' and this I guess create the big misconception.

With the 'Millionaire' tag and a high projected revenue, the seeds, sapling and inoculation cost are charged at a high premium price in Malaysia. In order to keep the cost low, shall have to make our own sapling from seeds. My search took me to Thailand, and this supplier is able to offer a price that I am comfortable with. USD120 for a kilo of fresh seeds. Order one kilogram of seeds of the Aquilaria Subintegra type. Was told that one kilogram of seeds consist of about 4,000 ~ 5,000 seeds. Seeds are available (fresh) from August till October.

Instruction given was simple, keep the seeds fresh and plant as soon as possible. Soak the seeds for about 3 hours prior to planting. Germinate on a raise bed of about 12 centimeter, in a cool area,  planting it at about 1 centimeter deep with the tail up. Water daily. Germination can be expected in about 3 weeks. The germination rate depends greatly on the freshness of the seeds. Can be transplant into poly bags when it grows 2 to 4 leafs.
Lets hope we have high germination in the coming weeks.

New Nursery on the left.

 We prepared a nursery with netting shade of 90%. This 90% shades are quite heavy due to the closeness of the shade, Our initial form-work collapsed and our men rebuilt. The raise beds were also prepared.

 Our nursery were made too large as we do not know approximately what size was required. 1 kilo of seeds occupied only almost 1 raised bed. After planting the seeds, we found tracks of dog. Hence we quickly fence up the sides with a 30% shade. This shall also keep the chicken (neighbors) out. Chicken tends to scratch on the raised beds, displacing the seeds and reduce germination rate.

Some of the survived Agarwood trees of our trial. Most were rescued from weeds and herbicide.

Start pruning our bigger Agarwood. The idea is to prune it so that it produce a single large tall trunk. Bigger trunks can house "larger" resins when it form compared to small trunks and branches. The pruned branches, we kept and try to propagate the cuttings.

Hope that our Project Agarwood shall progress smoothly and be a success. Stay tune for more updates.