Why Durians Needs Shading for Plant Establishement?

Growing durians is not the SAME as growing mangos, rambutans or jackfruits, Durians are very sensitive at early growth. Before its domestication from the wild jungle, they used to grow under tall vegetative. Statistics showed that about two-third of durian growing in the country is grown from SEEDLINGs  meaning that no bud grafting take place.When bud grafted materials are introduced, farmers took less care about its planting. This is because at early stage of planting durians need extra care needed where it cannot be exposed to the direct sunlight totally. In the equatorial climate where sunshine hours are very tense and dry grafted seedlings need shades either live shades like bananas or gylceridia or plastic nettings.

What to Do When Durians Flowers

Flowering time is the time that farmers or growers are waiting for. This indicate that very soon the fruits could be harvested, But wait... you have to 'jaga'  look after your durian flowers. The reasons - they might drop due to insect or fungus attack, water stress, pollination problems and whats not. One thing to remember is that the compatibility in the pollens meaning that some clones are not compatible within each other. Research shows that only 1-2% flowers that emerge will form to fruits, the rest will abort.

What to do?

The most important is water. If condition too dry flower may abort. What about too much rain during flowering? You have to do foliar spray  that contains Ca and B. You can also mix your foliar spray with fungicides like mancozeb or captan.

If the pollination is not good, you can put stingless bees that might help pollination.

Plant several clones meaning mixture of clones to encourage cross pollination might also help.

Flower formation, some dehisce 

Flowers pollinated small fruitlets produce

Very heavy flowering

How tom Turn Your Dusun Profitable?

Dusuns is Malay word for orchard. Unfortunately these orchards are grown with SEEDLING durians which that it is NOT grown from GRAFTED SEEDLINGS. For simple reasons ungrafted seedlings takes too long to mature to fruiting and fruits are very inconsistent in size, colour and shapes also taste varies. Often it is has very thin  pulp or flesh and had  a lot of seeds.

Dusun must be maintained  clean free of weeds

There is ways how to make your dusun profitable.
 Malay version :
1. Inventori bilangan pokok mengikut kesihatannya
2 Pembuangan pokok mati dan berpenyakit
3 Rawatan pokok yang terjejas
4 Penanaman semula dengan klon MK
5 Perolehan klon  durian (Musang King) dengan bahan tanaman cantuman dewasa (advanced planting materials -APM)  atau cantuman dewasa
6  Penyediaan semaian sementara
7 Pembajaan pokok-pokok yang sedia
8 Pembajaan pokok-pokok baharu
9 Kawalan mahkluk perosak dan penyakit
10 Pemangkasan dahan muda dan berpenyakit
11 Penuaian hasil
12 Pemantauan dan pemeriksaan pokok secara am
13 Analisa tanah dan daun didusun

English version:

1	Inventory of durian  plants according to their healthiness at each locality or blocks
2	Removal of  dead plants
3	Treatments of affected plants
4	Counting and Replanting of new plants
5	Purchasing clonal durian (Musang King) grafted  advanced planting materials (APM)  from accredited nurseries with
6	Transit Nursery field set-up
7	Fertilization  recommendation of present plants with
8	Fertilization  recommendation of new planting
9	Pest and disease application
10	Pruning new and old branches
11	Pre and post- harvest of fruits
12	Monitoring and inspection of trees
13	Soil and foliar analysis when necessary

Advance Planting Materials on Durians (APM)

People have said that it is very difficult to plant grafted durian seedlings in the field. Conventional planting of durians normally occurs when durians are grafted after six months in the nursery. Which means that the height of the grafted scion reached about 6 inches above, where the seedlings aged about one year old.

Field experiences showed that grafted plants (GP)  which are small are  small and left leaves are too delicate and sensitive to open environment. The best solution is to plant APM durians which can survive better and grows faster. Although APM plants may costs higher but  agronomic practices and  plant management is much easier.

APM plants are stronger and survive better in the field

APM plants spend more time in the nuresery

Planting Durians in Oil Palm Plantation

Durians are the most popular crop to be grown in Malaysia. Clonal durians or grafted seedlings have to be grown in order to obtain earliness in flowering as well as to get early investment return.

 

Compare to oil palm growing,  which a stable monthly income and high labour yet the amount is small i.e nine folds

Income comparison among crops grown in Malaysia.

Large scale Durian planting in Malaysia

Durians originally originates from the jungle of the tropical Asia. The origin of species was known to be from the Borneo Island,  Peninsular  Malaysia and Sumatra. There are many about 5 families of durio species found there i. D zibethenus, D. graveolens, D oxyleanus, D kutenjensis and D. graffiti. (?).

As durians are brought to open field for cultivation for domestication, they need the necessary requirement for growth. Formerly durians are grown from seeds by villagers or kampong people. Selections of good durians were made though natural selection where durians perform excellently at various localities in the states. There is why in Malaysia , we had almost 200 clones registered. 

In the 70's durians are not popular where prices only fetched around 50 sen pe kg or about 10 cents USD. I remembered in the 80's the price of durians was about 20 sen and clonal durians costed about RM2 to 3 especially D24. Since then, Malaysia concentrated its agriculture growth more on oil palms and rubber. Most of the FELDA scheme were planted by these crops.

The earliest research of durian in Malaysia was done by MARDI that takes about 30 years to produce clonal durians through proper plant breeding techniques by crossing and backcrossing procedures. People might asked why it takes so long to produce a single clone?. The process is tedious and slow where you have to find the true paternal and maternal parents which are distributed around the country. After pain staking steps been carried out through crossing, selection, GxE trials finally a few clones come out good like MDUR 78, MDUR 88 etc.

As time went on, people aware of its potentials  not only consume  as fresh but other products too like powder. There is a very large market to be tapped. Also there is technology that MARDI produced like "minimally processed" and deep freeze. It can be exported to any where in the world .

The taste of Malaysia durians are very different from Thai durians. Thai durians are sweet, and flat in taste, less odour and very 'full' when eating. Unlike Malaysian durians are sweet durian smell, sticky and irresistible when eating. It measn that it  they are so good or attractive that you cannot stop yourself from liking them or wanting them. See I want mean?. I can only eat one pulp of Thai durians but not Malaysian ones , oh its too yummy..

Lately I am involved in large scale durian planting. Wow , there a lot challenges, unexpectations and whats not. Large scale planting needs a professional to do the planning right from land suitability to marketing aspects. Agronomic practices, pest and diseases control and plant establishment at early start are the most crucial. What I mean is that to plant 1000 acres is not as easy to plant 1 acre, or 10 acres. In  large scale planting, even its  planting in one locality, the problems encountered is not the same because the heterogeny of the soils. In addition to plant durians in the fields that formerly from the jungle is not similar to plants durians from oil palms.