My Talk

I had given a talk on dragon fruits. The audience was good and recepetive. Many questions asked of how to survive dragon planting in Malaysia. My response was that Dragon cultivation is not a "Touch and Go" farming, the grower should vision themselves where he/she is going to bring the business.
My abstract is as below;


Abstract



Malaysia is blessed with good tropical climate. Many crops can be grown like rubber, oil palm, paddy and cocoa besides fruits. One of the recent newcomers in the Malaysian fruit industry is dragon fruits. After many trials and errors, dragon cultivation has made its niche in the Malaysian fruit industry. Although its investment is lucrative however, there are many challenges lie ahead to enhance its production.
This paper will discuss several issues pertaining to the industry and strategies to be taken in order to move forward. Accredited planting materials and resistant varieties are the major limiting factors that hinder its future expansion and sustainability. The dragon fruit cultivation is this country could again be profitable and rewarding if good agro-management measures are sought properly.

Close Planting of Dragon Fruits

The normal or conventional planting density in dragon fruits is 2 meter X 3 meter (6 ft.X 9 ft.).This means that for an acre only 2,000 plants could be planted.It is a good idea if the planting density could be increased so that many plants could be plant per unit area.
I have seen close planting of dragon fruits in Chiangmai. However, during my visit it was not fruiting season. I think their planting density is 1 ft X 10 ft.

Dragon Fruits Adds Another Niche

Since the last ten years we hardly see dragon fruits grown in tropical conditions. It has been known that dragon fruits are long day plants.Meaning that it makes food at night. However, lately we can see it has emerged as a newcomer in the tropical fruit industry. It is been liken by everybody from different walks of like. I believe that climate change has something to do with the adaptations of the crop in the hot and humid tropics like Malaysia.

In the pic above, dragon fruit outshines guava,mangosteen, 'buah tampoi' and rambutan.These fruits make a beautiful basket of fruits.

Good Dragon Fruits Farms

Yesterday I visited two farms nearby which are considered good. The most important in keeping good farm is

1) Fertilization
2) Pruning
3) Management.

These are the three basic things to ensure the sustenance of the farm. Both farms I visited are organic farms meaning that they applied organic fertilizers. Here are some pics to look at.

Those interested to order the organic fertilizer can email me at zainudinhaji@gmail.com or call my handphone 012 3535 411 (see below). Detail testimony will be provided,











I have just planted the yellow type. I have more than 2,000 cuttings.






Organic ferilizer derived from fish (New Zealand product)

Strange Dragon Fruit Disease?

Some one from Puerto Rico (PR) has posted to me  about this strange 'disease' on dragon fruit. Just like look closely what is it? Send your findings to me.

What do you on the pitaya barnch?

MAHA 2015

Well the Malaysian Agriculture, Horticulture and Agro-Tourism (M.A.H.A. ) 2015 is very soon that will be held 11-23 August 2015. I have been assigned to become a judge in the fruit category. This means that I have to go to see all participated farms around the country in order to propose which are the best farms. The farms included guava, citrus, dragon fruits, salak, starfruits, mango etc. It is hefty alot of work organised by the Department of Agriculture as the secretariat.


I chose to go Sabah this time where I went to see citrus in Tawau, salak and dragon fruits in Sandakan and guava in Tenom.
View from Crocker Range

Most of the farms were very coordinated and managed well.

Coconut milk is sold everywhere in Sabah

Beautiful weed/legume I found

Dragon fruits flowering prosufely

Packaging of dragon fruits in boxes


Dragon fruits flowering



Dragon fruit plantation in Beluran area


Dragon fruits with heavy flowering


Salak plant and fruits in Sandakan area (below)



I enjoyed my trip from Tawau to Sandakan then go to Kota Kinabalu and later to Tenom by road.

Visit To Dragon Fruit, Kendal,Semarang Indonesia

I had the opportunity to visit Semarang again. This time is much easier to go there because there is a daily  flight from Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT ) via Air Asia from Kuala Lumpur to Semarang; the journey took about two and half hours. Semarang is  the fourth biggest in Indonesia besides Jakarta, Bandung and Surabaya. The airport is Ahmad Yani International Airport. The climate is hot and dry.

My way to Kendal, Semarang. The banner saying don't touch drugs or nacortics even a little bit

A beautiful big mosque in Kendal town, a two-hour from Semarang City

Red dragon fruits, not mature yet with little white spots.

'Choo Ka Nan' mango with anthracnose but could be controlled.

Discussion with Johnny and me in red white T-shirt together with others

I went to a dragon fruit farm which is about 6 hectares. The purpose of my visit is to observe how dragon fruits are grown on reclaim  soggy soil. The soil is black and very wet, but they manage the soil by mounting. Meaning that they make small mounts at each stake to drain the water. The growth of  dragon fruits is extremely good with lightings. I only manage to see a little disease and they kept the field very clean.   All pruned branches were grounded and mixed with left-over shrimps in containers for fourty days. The organic fertilizer is done sprayed to plants as foliar fertilizers. They also added extra manure to each stake. The yield mentioned is about 1-2 ton per hectare during this season and can be  more. The plants were only four-year old.I observed that the self-made organic fertilizer is natural and contains chitin from prawn that is able to protect from diseases naturally. Adjacent to the farm, they had  about 25 big shrimp ponds and six power station was installed.

Besides, they grow mango in this farm with Choo Ka Nan variety. I tasted the fruits and it is extremely sweet and less fibre. I asked them why they are interested to plant this variety. The answer is that the price is very much higher than Indonesian mangoes like Harumanis or Mana Lagi. However, this Thailand variety need good pre-harvest treatment because it is sensitive to disease and insect attacks. One obvious disease I observe is anthracnose  which cause black spots on the fruits and the other is bruising due to mite attack.

Dragon fruits grown or reclaim soils with lightings installed

Well developed  four-year old dragon fruits plants

Me and Johnny at  one hectare wax apple plants

Ciku or sapota  roots infected by disease

Other plants I manage to observe was chiku or 'sawo' or sapota. This plants thrieve well on reclaim soil, however there are few root disease which attack the plants.The 'sawo' or chiku is very very sweet and flowering was tremendous. There are also 'anona' or custard apple, which is growing well.

There was also 'jambu air' or aqua. It is very crunchy,seedless and sweet. The trees had very intense canopy. I manage to advise so that to prune 'open-center' system in which the central leader is cut-off and let  the light pass through. It encourages ventilation and flowering.

My host Pak Harsono and wife after having dinner at Hotel Candi, Semarang. We had delicious dinner with fish and big prawns specially cooked for us. My wife Yati also with me.