PLANTING VANILLA A NEW VENTURE

Orchid with aromatic flavour By Rintos Mail

LAST year, Malaysia announced it wanted to introduce vanilla as a new commodity in view of the high demand and wide market for this orchid-derived by-product.

QUARANTINE: Vanilla vines quarantined in the Duta Bistari’s net shade. Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, the then Agriculture and Agro Based Industries Minister, said the crop had the agricultural criteria underlined in the Ninth Malaysia Plan, given its high added commercial value and bio-technology potential whose exploitation would need the active involvement of farmers and skilled workers. According to him, research by Malaysian Agriculture Research and Development Institute (Mardi) in 1992 had shown that good quality vanilla beans could be produced in Malaysia. He said the ministry’s effort to introduce vanilla as a new crop was also to prevent Malaysia becoming too dependent on other commodities like rubber and oil palm.
In response, a local company, Duta Bistari Sdn Bhd, recently brought in the most important vanilla species of agricultural value from India. “I got interested during my two-week business trip to Vanuatu last year. They planted the same V planifolia from Mexico. “On my return, I tried to look for investors. Then, about two months ago, Duta Bistari Sdn Bhd agreed to start a nursery before going into downstream business,” said Duta Bistari farm and marketing manager, Tanny Lee.

VALUABLE: The important species from India at Duta Bistari’s net shade.
“Unfortunately, we could not bring in the species from Vanuatu because of transportation problem. But we managed to obtain the same good species from India,” he added.
Now, Duta Bistari has about 10,000 cuttings in its quarantine shade at Tinggian Demak in Petra Jaya. Those interested to plant this most important species and become the company’s contract farmers may contact Lee at 012 8834466. He said the company’s contract farmers would have a bright future as the owner, a prominent local corporate figure, is seriously looking into developing the vanilla industry in Sarawak. Aside from selling the cuttings, he revealed the company would have its own farm near the quarantine shade. “Some will be planted on poles under the built-up shade while some on trees in the nearby secondary forest. We have started some planting at the latter.”

Given that vanilla orchids normally grow in tropical forests, Sarawak has great potential to become a leading producer in the region. Lee said they were introducing a simple method of propagation — cutting without a polyethylene bag. “From what I learned in Vanuatu, the crop is usually grown with stem cuttings. If you can afford, cuttings with 10 to 12 internodes or one metre should be used as they flower sooner than shorter cuttings,” he added. However, Lee pointed out that the length of the cuttings had be adjusted according to the availability of planting materials and area. He said cuttings with fewer than five to six internodes or shorter than 60cm, should be avoided if planted in the open main field. Cuttings with fewer than four internodes — the shortest being recommended — could be used if planted under a tree shade.
Lee encouraged the use of coconut husks mixed with compost for planting. When planting the longer stems, lower two to three internodes to the ground and cover them with coconut husks mixed with compost. He said if there were no coconut husks and compost, the stem should be placed in a shallow trench about three to four cm deep and about 10cm wide. The evacuated soil is used to loosely fill this trench.

According to him, preparing the soil for prospective vanilla plantations must take into account the need to supply each vine with a support or stake for the vine to climb on. The supports can be non-living or living. “Most often used for vanilla are either plants already in the plantation or trees from original forest growth left during land clearance.” Lee said vanilla flourished in partial shade with about 50 per cent sunlight. Low branching trees with rough bark and small leaves are grown for this purpose.

Some of the trees now used include Glyricidia, Erythrina, Jatropha carcas, Plumeria alba and Casuarna equisetifolia. If the support selected is a legume, it will be able to enrich the soil.
Lee explained to facilitate training of the vines around the branching shoots, growth should be adjusted to let the vanilla branch out at a height of 120 to 150cm.He recommended planting vanilla at a spacing of one metre within the row and two metres between the rows to allow for a population of about 2,000 trees per acre.“In high density planting, one metre spacing has been used to plant around 4,000 vines per acre but after five years, pruning and spacing will be required.”

Lee said in the open field, the cuttings should be shaded with tall dry grass, palm fronds or other suitable materials. In dry soil, a light sprinkling of water helps to establish early cuttings.
It takes about four to eight weeks for the cuttings to strike roots and show initial signs of growth.
“Under proper care, the one metre cutting can produce a lot of new branches within a month. Some may even produce flower buds. We have one plant, a metre long, that produces buds about a month after planting,” he added.

Vanilla can also be planted as an inter-crop in coconut, rubber and cocoa plantations. These orchids can be recognised by their typical light green colour. The buds are said to normally open very early in the morning for pollination by bees and hummingbirds although there is no trace of the vanilla essence at this stage.

The flowers which are hermaphroditic (containing both male and female parts divided by a thin membrane to prevent self-pollination) will develop into little pods after being pollinated with each pod containing thousands of small black seeds. The pods are long and thin — very similar to the string beans but smaller in comparison.

Since the flower does not develop into a fruit unless it is pollinated, artificial pollination is needed in places where natural means are not available. It takes the pods about one month to mature and once fully developed, they are harvested and dried. The curing of the pods will produce the aroma so much loved and used throughout the world.

Since the vine has the tendency to grow upwards, every year after harvest, the farmers will push the vine downwards to keep it within hand’s reach. This process is said to increase the flowering capacity of the vanilla orchid which, as a huge vine, often exceeds 100 feet in length.

Make Good Use Of Native Land

If you have land idle in your Kampung or village, initiate something to make it use and generate income. Some of the project that you can venture into are:-

i) Planting Gaharu
ii) Vanilla
iii) Oil Palm
iv) Livestock rearing.

For me the easiest and inexpentive venture is oil palm planting.

INTEGRATED FARMING - VERMICOMPOSE

The best method to maximize income in agriculture is to adopt integrated farming. For example we can integrate cattle, goat or sheep with oil palm. We can also integrate it with wormiculture, a newly found method to utilize goat feaces to more beneficial to plant.

Make Money Through Agriculture in Malaysia

I knew a lots of individual earned good income from agriculture enterprise. For those who have land, especially people from Sarawak please think and do something to your land. The NCR land has no value at all, but if you start planting Oil Palm for example you may generate an income of about RM5000 per ha per year and may be more if you manage your palm properly.

If you have 100 ha, you may be able to generate half million a year if the price of FFB RM500/tonne. Sound interesting? But you must be prepare to spend some money (investment) for developing your land say about RM5000 per ha until fruiting. If others can do it, why not us? My oil palm will start fruiting at the age of around 24 - 30 months after field planting.

Sustainable Palm Oil Planting

The Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) will continue its focus of helping planters boost productivity, address environmental concerns and produce more value-added products. This is infact a good news to small holders like us.

Malaysia is the world's second largest palm oil production after Indonesia and is expected to churn out 18 million tonnes in 2009. However, Malaysia is still the world's largest palm oil exporter, selling RM65 billion worth of crude palm oil to over 340 countries. (Source New Straits Times 3 Feb 2009).

The target is for the industry to produce 35 tonnes of fresh fruit bunches a year by 2020, from the current national average of 20 tonnes. The average price now at mill gate is slightly above RM 360 (US 100) only.

Productivity is a major issue as land is limited in Malaysia with some big planters already expanding abroad. In the case of Sarawak, which is the biggest state in Malaysia, land is still a major obstacle because most of the land is under Native Customery Right without land title. No bank is willing to give loan for small holder to develope the land. Most bank require title land as colateral.

How To Grow Mushroom in a Sawdust Bag

First, you must buy the sawdust bag from the mushroom supplier.

Here are the procedure:

1. Open the cover.
2. Keep at cooling and humid places like bathroom or under shade.
Must not expose to direct sunlight or rain. It can also be kept in the kitchen or darker corner of the house.
3. Open the cover and spray the opening with water twice a day daily.
4. Mushroom should grow within a week. With high humidity, it should grow within 5 days
5. Mushroom should be harvested within 3 day after fruiting (best size sare about 5-8 cm)
6. After harvesting, remove the roots of mushroom which are still attached to the top surface of the sawdust bag. Use any sharp end object to scrapthe surface. Sterilize the object (screw driver of handle of small spoon)before using to prevent contamination.
7. Spray some water on the top surface of the sawdust (at the opening) before covering it again with resting cap. (use the same cover that youhave since I didn't give you the resting cap.)
8. Let the mushroom bag rest for 10 days before opening the cover again. During the resting period, it is not necessary to spray water until thecover is opened again after 10 days. Spray water twice a day until the next harvesting. Repeat the procedures.. A mushroom bag should be able toharvest for about six times.

For those bags which haven't grow, spray some water at the opening and cover it for another ten days before opening it again. Sometimes it takes longer period to grow if it is kept indoor. As long as it is not contaminated. It should grow anyway. (If it is kept ouside the house at a darket corner and not expose to direct sunlight and rain, it shoild grow faster)

How Do I Start My First Step

Greeting! Konichiwa!

Hi, my name is Adrian. This is my first blogging experience and I am excited.

My idea on creating my own blogsites started after I read books on Blogger where I can share experience and knowlegde on anything that interest me.

I've a small project to help my father and brother at my village (Kampung). I've hired my village people with a small salary of about RM 15 - RM 20 per day part time. My first project is planting oil palms at a small parcel of land about 10 ha not far from my village at Serian, Sarawak, Malaysia. I will integrate it with sheep once it reach 3 years in order to save cost of fertilizer and weedicide.

I am doing this over the weekend and on part time basis just to relieve stress from heavy workload in the office. Believe me, much of my stress at work reduce once I started to sweat after walking up and down the hill.

I get some help from friends in the plantation sector and from reading books on planting oil palm. I hope it will bear fruit and some get return in three years time. At the moment this project cost me more than RM 45,000.00 for an area of about 6 hectars but it's okay because I hate to see empty land with no value at all (In the case of NCR in Sarawak)

We need to change in order to be successful in this world. For me, I want to change according to the world demand. Growing in wealth, health, family, love and happiness. Grow green for the mother earth.

Thank you for viewing my blog and hope to hear from you. Sayonara!