To someone not familiar with the "durian" Malaysia's kings of fruits, the above term may be perplexing. The thorny fruits are not normally plucked but they will fall from their stems when they are ready for the table.This is especially so when the trees are 30-40 feet tall in the traditional villages. It is only within the last two decades when new and improved clones were produced by government research institutions that durian trees are much shorter and some of the branches with fruits can be plucked by hand.
When I started planting fruit trees on my farm in Janda Baik in 1996/97, all the seedlings were sourced from MARDI. They were mainly the D series of durians, mangosteen and dokong. My durians started to bear fruits about two years ago and the magostee and dokong only this year; that too are not yet very prolific.Some three years later, when I acquired two more adjoing lots of land, I also planted rambutan, mangoes, avocados, and various other short term fruit trees.
This year the durians are a bit more prolific but because it rained heavily during the flowering season, the rate of pollination was much reduced. However with less fruits per tree, I noticed that fruits produced are much bigger.
MSAbdullah.
Wednesday, 27 August 2008
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