BOUNTIES OF AGAR TREES

Agar Tree or commonly known as gaharu in Malaysia, has been known for centuries as tree providing the basic ingredient for perfume. The tree grows in the wild malaysian forest and has not been planted on a commercial scale.

TheStar 26 Sept 2013

The Star newspaper carried two-page write-up on the agar tree.

A. Uses
- medicine
- tea - from the leaves
- beauty powder from the leaves.
- herbal soup formula.
- perfume - the current price of black resin is rm2000 per kg.


B. The Plantation
- 121 ha - 330 acres of plantation in Gopeng Perak.
- It took him 21 years to build up the business.

C. Managing The Trees.
The tree will be worth more if infested by fungus.A black resin is secreted as the defence mechanism.

D. Product Processing
The company set up a factory in Gopeng Perak. With its 30 staff , it is currently producing the agar leaves herbal tea, for export to China, US and Indonesia, Middle East and Canada.
- about 1000kg if leaves are harvested daily. They are used to make biscuits, soup sachets and eve instant noodles.

My Dragon Fruit

I had not been taking care of my dragon fruits plants. I was suppose to put fertilizer, the organic type once a month, at least a kilo per tree. As such, the fruits are rather small.

Today I collected 5 fruits...

Wild Flowers at Bukit Tinggi

Bukit Tinggi is a resort located about 30 minutes drive from Kuala Lumpur. The name Bulit Tinggi is the lateral translation of High Hill in English. The name is now changed to berjaya resort.

 Beautiful Violet flowers from the crawler.

special tree with the pods to trap insets and small animal. The pods produces slippery chemical that  cause the animals to slip into the pods.

coconut tree

Coconut tree

It is kind of palm that grows in abundant both in the wild at the sea side as well in in large estates. It is a traditional'must have' tree in the Malaysian Malay community.

Uses

The plant is considered as a multipurpose plan. The main uses are:

a. milk from the white meat.Use in the cooking by peoples in the tropic.

b. water in the seed can be a cooling drink.

c. The husk can be turn to rope.

d. the meat can be dried to form copra and squeezed to produce oil. Coconut oil is used for cooking.

Served cooled coconut drink - natural and refreshing

As an industry, the plantation is not known to provide a steady income. This is mainly due to the high fluctuation in price, which some time fall below the the cost.

growing bamboo tree

Growing bamboo tree is not too difficult.

In fact the tree is meant to grow naturally, and that is what happen in nature. The one of the plant gets old or felled by strong wind, the tip will touch the ground and new shoot will start to grow.

Bamboo has many uses, one of which it can be used as cooking utensil. In the early days when there was no metal pot and pan, bamboo was used to replace the utensil, and that tradition i carried on until today.

Lemang is the traditional food cooked in bamboo in Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. It is cooked in bamboo on an open flame. During festive time. it is almost mandatory for the Malay to have the Lemang.

The bamboo plant

Growing bamboo tree is easier now, with the knowledges and equipments. The plant grow in abundant in the tropic. As the jungle is being chopped down, it is harder to find the bamboo to be used for the lemang.

Many had started to plant the bamboo for own usage. The commercial farming is yet to take place.

The seedlings are shown below:

The bamboo seedling can be easily propagated

There are three ways to propagate the plants:

1. from the plants cuttings

2. from the roots and tubers.

3. from the seeds.

I was using both the cuttings and the roots. The success rate for the cuttings was about 50%. For roots and tubers, the success can be a high 80%. From my personal experience, growing bamboo tree was easy.

We many not realize that there is alot of money to be made in growing bamboo commercially. It is easy to grow and the competition is not too intense.

Malaysian Rubber Trees

Those who have not seen how the natural rubber is being produced will be wondering how it is done.
It starts with the rubber three like below. About six years after planting, it can be tapped.

Tapping is the manual process of control cut of the skin of the three. It is normal to tap half of the diameter.

Malaysia was the biggest producer of natural rubber until it decided to venture to palm oil. However it remains as the most effective producer, the highest Kg per Hectare.

Rubber taping requires high labor, as each tree has to be tapped manually.

Uneven growth makes tapping difficult..

The plantation was sprayed with herbicide to get rid of scrub and small trees.

The entrant road to the rubber plantation is full over small bushes. The non-metal road gets a bit slippery during the rainy season.

.

The rubber trees are ready for tapping, when it reached the age of seven.

There are basically 3 ways the planter can sell the product.

1. he can leave it in the cup until it harden by itself.

2. he can collect the latex and sell the latex as unprocessed.

3. he can collect the latex and make it into rubber sheet.

Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages.

My Home Garden

Late Jan 2013, I had planted a couple of fruit tree behind my house.

I have a mango tree and guava. I bought at from an Orchard in Sungai Buloh at the price of RM25 each. It was rather expensive, but I like it as the guava had started to bear fruit.

Planting the mango tree was done in a simplified way. I know, I was suppose to prepare the planting hole a month in advance. A hole of 2 feet by 2 feet by 2 feet. Separate the top soil from the rest, and get more top soil. Mix the top soil with organic fertilizer in the ratio of 2 to 1. Fill up the hole with the mixture and leave it to mature for 1 month.

After a month, buy the mango and let it adjusted with the local situation for a week. Then, remove the plastic container, dig a hole just enough to fit the seedling and plant it. Then water it generously.

Watering have to be done daily for 1 month.    

video on how to plant mango tree...

My Own Dragon Fruits

This was my first trial to plan the tree about 5 years ago. It did work, and I had enough for my own consumption, but it does not last. Now it does not fruit any more.

I also notice that during raining season, too much water had ill effects on it.

 1.Dragon fruits is a sub tropical plant. However it can be grown in the tropic.The best is to plant it from the tree cutting itself. Cut it and leave it on the soil for 3 weeks for it to produce roots. Water it once per week.



There are 2 types that I have come across, the red and the white variety

2. You can plant it from the seeds also. But this will take longer to fruit. Planting from tree can produce fruit within 1 year, but from seed, it can be 2 years.The plan is unique. The seed will produce small plant with a pair of leaves. This is the only leaves it ever get. After that, a spiky stem will grow. The green skin replace the function of the leaves.

After a month, the seedlings are bigger


Planting from seed will produce something like this. Look nice, but it is longer to fruit


You can prepare the pot for the planting. It need a strong support. The weight can exceed 100 kg.

with proper fertilizer, 1 kg of organic fertilizer per month, it can give many healthy fruits. You know that there is no insecticides used

You will be able to taste the fruit of labor with 2 weeks. It will slowly turn to bright red color. After the color turned to red, wait about 7 days before plucking it

The flowers bloom at night and will close the next morning after sunrise. In some locations, the flowers will find it hard to pollinate, thus, it require artificial pollination.

I use a birds feature to collect dust from the male flowers and spread it to the female of different plants, if you do not have the other plant then the other flowers. Last last resort is on the same flower.

The Mangrove Trees in Johor

Mangrove is the group of trees that grow in the sea-front.

mangosteen from Pahang

Last month I went back to my home town in Pahang.