Saturday, December 22, 2007

Agronomic Practices



Pruning is very important in dragon fruit cultivation. Besides, it provides good framework and balance for plant canopy, it allows good ventilation for plants. Small insects might live within the compact canopy making spraying of insects difficult. I have observed that farmers practise the wrong way to prune dragon fruits making it attack by insects badly.

The top pic shows how farmers pruned dragon fruits the wrong way.It has become multi layer that caused heavy load to the support stand.

Below is the correct way how to prune dragon fruit. The top part should be free from new shoot growth allowing sunshine to penetrate and good ventilation.


Saturday, December 1, 2007

Visit To Brunei Darulsalam

I had spent my holidays in Brunei from 26th to 30th November.This is my first visit to the country. I crossed through Limbang, then to Temburong. What is interesting to me is that there are farmers already planting this fruits. I saw they used 2 cuttings per stake made from 'berlian' wood.
I had observed how the farmers made their own organic fertilizers and the farm was very clean. I traced out some secrets of how they control diseases using the cheapest way. The only disease I noticed was brown rust spot caused by Dothirella but it is under control.The weather was wet and dry. Brunei had a very good potential to produce dragon fruits however early works should be done such as suitable land establishment, good and reliable planting materials, management practices and marketing as well downstream activities must be well planed and worked out. The people are eager to plant if the incentives are right.

Prior going to Brunei, I was asked to go to investigate disease breakout in Johore. About 50 acres were infected. What I observed that due to flooding, but the farmers did not control the disease from spreading partly due to bad sanitation and field agronomic activities.Apart from that farmers did not practice the correct pruning techniques, the canopy was dense and crowded that harvest a lot of insects and fungus.One more thing they did not pruned at the joints, making easy infection of diseases to enter if the branches were half-pruned.