THE AGRI & AQUA

CULTURING NEWSLETTER
To Further Malaysias Agriculture & Aquaculture Industry

Issue 12 October 2012

Introduction
THE AGRI & AQUA CULTURING NEWSLETTER is prepared with the intention to provide the reader with information about the agriculture and aquaculture industry in Malaysia, while gathering insights and information on industry development and practices, as well as training opportunities offered by the Government and Private sector. The Newsletter seeks to gather like-minded individuals who are willing to share ideas and experiences in the field.

FROM THE CULTIVATORS COUCH:

October is really coming off as a more relaxed month for most of us. September was a really frantic month for the AACN team. As such, we would like to apologize for missing the September issue. Although we are not going to give any excuses, you will soon see in the October issue that we had good reason for our apparent slackfullness. However, to make it up to you all, we will be publishing a Special Feature newsletter next month, in addition to the November Issue.

CONTENT OF THE OCTOBER 2012 ISSUE:

Banana Harvesting by Johnny Lak My Little Farm 10 by Raymond Fish Scales Jelly for Osteoarthritis and Beauty Care by Senny Ong Grow Your Own The Hydroponics System
by MJ Joel

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Upcoming Events

True contentment is a thing as active as agriculture. It is arduous and it is rare ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

If you have itchy fingers for writing articles about Agriculture or Aquaculture, and wish to contribute your knowledge and experiences, please contact us:

Email: agrinaquanewsletter@gmail.com
Disclaimer: Reasonable care have been utilised in the preparation of the content and text of the Agri & Aqua Culturing Newsletter (henceforth referred as the Newsletter). Notwithstanding this, due to constant changes and advancement in the agriculture and aquaculture industries, we are not able to ensure the accuracy or reliability of the information provided in the Newsletter. For this reason, the reader is advised to undertake necessary due diligence on the information before relying on the same for any purpose whatsoever. The publisher, key contributors, and related associates disclaim any and all liability whatsoever and howsoever occasioned relating to the information provided in and content of, the Newsletter. We do not endorse any opinion, advice or statement published in the Newsletter Permissions and reprints: All rights reserved. Reproduction without express and written permission is strictly prohibited. To request permission to republish in any form whatsoever, please contact: agrinaquanewsletter@gmail.com

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Banana Harvesting
Had my first banana harvest in early October. It was actually 60 days early if according to calculation. Based on Jabatan Pertanian guidelines, it usually fruits 8-9 months after planting and matures in 100-120 days. Come to think of it my only input for the banana trees are 3 products, which are Fermented Organic Material (FOM), SP 2 & Micron-Ca. The Banana Collector harvesting the banana by pulling the fruit down and making 2 sharp cuts on each side of the banana trunk.

The Banana Collector teaching my worker & harvesting the banana.

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After harvesting, we cut the trunk down and leave it to rot. While we keep 2-3 suckers for the next round of harvest.

The Banana Collector cut the bananas down into combs. His knife is sharp.

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Dont know if this is proper post-harvest handling but he shields the banana with newspaper so there is less friction on the bananas. The price of Berangan banana are great. Ex-farm is about RM 2.00/kg. While Pasar Malam & Hypermarket are selling them between RM 3.50 RM 4.50/kg. Have fun farming. See you again in next months issue.

Article by Johnny Lak

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My Little Farm 10
Project Papaya V3 We use to have a couple of these during my childhood days. Well guess things are not what it used to be. Had been having problem with the weather, causing drought and wet stress on the plants. Then there is pest infection as well as fungus infection. tree, and blocking it with whatever waste that is available, such as old wood, bamboo & etc.

Our second batch trial on Papaya started back on April. Germinating the seeds I guess was the easy part. I have faster germination and higher germination rate by germinating on a raised bed. I prefer this method as I find that it suits my local condition better as our water supply is inconsistent. Raised beds retain more heat and moisture that small germination tray. I didnt have much luck using germination tray. We had some problem with chickens (neighbors) scratching on the raised beds and ants carrying away seeds during the germination period. Heavy drops of water / rain also created problem like toppling the seedling. This can be taken care of by putting shading net over it, a few inches higher than the raised bed. My guys are doing this, but I took the lazy way out, doing the raised bed underneath a

This time, I transferred the seedlings to poly bags after they germinated with 2 to 4 leaves. It is very tender at this stage. I feel that I am getting higher survival rates after transfer as there are so young and adaptive, or maybe they are too nave and is easy to cheap. I find using poly bags of 6 inches diameter X 9 inches deep provides more space for the root to grow and retain more heat and moisture. We can keep the seedling to even to a foot tall in this size of bag. Also its not too large or heavy to transport for field planting. These seedlings are kept under a shade of 70%. Correct amount of watering at this stage is critical. Too much, fungus attack, too little it gets dried off. Depending on the weather and field condition, I transfer them to field at a height of 5 inches and above.

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We had some mealy bugs attack. Fruit flies are also a plenty. We had started to wrap up the papayas. Then came Fungus attack, Anthracnose and Powdery Mildew.

Once transferred to field, irrigation is also very critical for the first two months. We encountered some problem as it was hot and dry during, then sudden rain for some time. Also we need to water the plants as sometimes its real hot. All these factors caused the stem to break up, infecting the stem with fungus / bacteria. This caused stem / collar rot. We had some plants dying, died. We try saving the plants but at the same time, planted another one next to it.

We also tried planting about 200 papaya plants, integrating it with pumpkins. As we were short of workforce and it was left uncared for a while. The weeds had grown too long. We are having a tough time weeding them. It can only be done manually with hand, as we do not want to damage the pumpkins and papaya. The pumpkins had borne some fruits, but due to the dry season and long weeds, the harvest was mostly damaged but rats. The weeds did helped by shading the papaya and help keep the soil moist. Had started to clear the weeds, but plenty more to go. Dont think we can clear it before I go off for my vacation. Had requested my helpers to follow through on the weeding and fertilizing.

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We have some papayas starting to flower and started to have small fruits. Need to do some fertilizing. The 3 surviving Mas Solo are growing healthily. We hope for these 3 to bear fruits so that we can propagate more of these variety should it pass our screening. Special thanks to Michael J, whom had offered plenty advice. Stay tune for more updates.

Article by Raymond

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Fish Scales Jelly for Osteoarthritis and Beauty Care

It has been a while people talking about fish scales jelly, and they begin to use of deep sea fish scales that are discarded in commercial fishery, then recycle into useful healthy healing dessert soup or making jelly for consumption. By using deep sea fish scales to cook into jelly dessert, or making healthy soup, the gelatin-like property in fish scales is cooked and derived the hydrolysis of collagen extract, which has the rich calcium content and collagen property to bone health as they believed this is folk medicine remedies which can be good for osteoarthritis to elderly and other health purposes. Deep Sea Fish Scales (Dried and cleaned)

Fish scale has good source of natural collagen contains and is one of the most critical raw materials for the biotechnology industry to produce into marine collagen and gelatin, which is well known now like skincare collagen capsules and collagen beverages. Also, a huge demand for the best biomedical materials include bio-materials, cosmetics, food, industrial, and research purposes. It can be nutritious supplement to hair, bone and teeth, also good nutrients for beauty health care to support the skin layers required to active and further enhanced collagen in the skin, to moisturize the skin, anti-aging, helps in eliminating wrinkles and other effects from the marine collagen derived in form of collagen beverage and capsules.

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What is Collagen? Collagen is a complement nutrient and building block to skin and helps to slow down aging. it is about 30% of entire protein of the human body, weight about 3 kg of collagen in an adult body. Collagen is essential protein widely present in the human skin, bone, muscle, tendons, cartilage, joints, hair tissue acts as a support, repair, and protection triple anti-aging effects. There are many benefits and its nutrients like mineral, fat, protein, iron, zinc, and variety of vitamins, calcium, phosphorus, and collagen extracted from fish scales. Which is good for bone and teeth, entire human body and its structure functions. And its mechanisms of action to use fish scales extracted into gelatin jelly dessert as good sort of natural collagen for beauty and health care. It can be skin miniaturization and antiwrinkle natural skincare to prevent skin aging Helps to improve arthritic conditions, osteoporosis for elderly and improve calcium absorption Improving of hair care and preventing from dryness, hair-loss and baldness Helps to replenish and improve to enhance skin tone, promoting skin scars and repairs wound healing. As good natural source of collagen to promote self-production of collagens and hyaluronic acid playing a role in keeping skin firmness and improve skin moisture retention. It also enhances immunity system.

Anyway, nowadays you can easily find the dried fish scales selling in market to solve the troublesome cleaning process. I felt so thankfully that my friend gave me lots of ready washed and cleaned dried fish scales for my blog writing and making healthy dessert. As when I tried to cook for a few times, I found it is nice for what was at first I thought fish scales should be fishy smelly odor in taste but not. With the preparation and added some pandanus leaves to it. It just tastes like pandan Jelly. Nice taste and not that bad. Simply Senz Fish Scales Orange Pandan Jelly

Ingredients for making Fish Scales Jelly: Dried Fish Scales (500gms of big fish scales) Pandanus leaves (6 stalks) Sugar - 2 tbs Water 600ml

Method: 1. Clean and wash dried fish scales (ready cleansed type) and pandanus leaves with running water to wash thoroughly.

A friend of mine has been collecting large amount of biggest deep sea fish scales from the wet market or fisheries. I can see he is real keen in doing it for years, and he thoroughly removed the entire stink and foul-smelly with properly procedures, from brushing each fish scale, it really taking his precious times to clean up the wet fish scales one by one, to dry it and the whole process of preparation, then make it into dried fish scales. He then preserved it for storage in future usage.

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2.

Put water to boil, add in all ingredients to cook till the fish scales is almost dissolved or thickening form. Approximately 3 to 4 hours of cooking time.

2 Oranges + 1 tbs. Rock sugar

Cut orange into half, squeeze out the orange juice, then cut some orange peel into smallest slices. Ready for use.

3.

Removes the pandanus leaves, filter with strainer to strain out the fish scales extract, you can serve warm as warm soup or pour into small jelly containers to set into jelly form. Let it cool to set in refrigerator.

Cook orange syrup with low heat with rock sugar till thicken syrup. To serve as topping on Fish scale Jelly. With orange syrup topping to enhance the fish scales jelly with orange flavor to taste. Orange juice also further enhance the collagen production effect to skin and body.

* Serve with orange syrup topping is optional. Orange puree preparation: syrup Ingredients and

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Although drinking collagen-rich soup or making jelly from the natural source of fish scales may not be easily absorb into human body, due to the human digestive system is the main filter out a large part, and how much the fish scales collagen and its micro-nutrients can really reach the human body, and skin in absorption is very limited, therefore, the process of benefit is relatively lengthy, the efficiency is low, still daily consumption may help too. Thus, Collagen extracted in smallest molecules to the human body needs the degradation of collagen peptide molecular, and amino acids then only can be absorbed by the body. However, Collagen peptides, collagen molecules into the human body needs obtaining from fish scale containing peptide sequence of the protein is more comprehensive, more nutrition and the affinity of the human body. Anyway, no harm give it a try, fish scales is the cheapest to get it from fishery.

Article by Senny Ong http://sennyong.blogspot.com

Disclaimer: Most important is to understand what is right for your health condition, although herbs are safe for some people, if you wish to try it is advisable for you to consult with your holistic health practitioner or doctor first. No matter what type of healing herbs or alternative healing method, we still have to be careful in consumption, start off slowly and minimize it to prevent overdoses with it.

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Issue 12 October 2012

Grow Your Own The Hydroponics System

Have you ever thought about growing your own vegetables, but found that owning a landed property just to build raised beds a little too expensive? Or do you find yourself squirming at the thoughts of putting your hands into bucket loads of muck and soil? Well, if you have, then hydroponics is the solution for you. In the course of the next few weeks, we will look into a number of soilless food growing methods, and how you can build one of your own. In this issue, we will cover hydroponic systems. The Hydroponic Systems There are six basic types of hydroponic systems, each with hundreds of variations and combinations. These hydroponic systems are fairly simple in concept, and once you understand how the systems work, building your own wont be hard and can even be fun. (i) Water Culture or Floating Raft System
Figure 2: Wick System
Source: www.hydro-heaven.com

such as lettuce or cabbage. Very few plants other than these two will do well in this type of system. (ii) Wick System The wick system is a simple hydroponic system with contains no moving parts. All there is to it is the use of a wick which draws nutrient solution into the growing medium from a reservoir. The growing medium used usually loose materials absorbent materials such as perlite, sphagnum moss, or cocopeat.

The water culture, or more commonly termed floating raft system, is the simplest of all active hydroponic system. A platform that holds the plants made of Styrofoam float directly above the nutrient solution. An air pump supplies air through the air stone, and the bubbles circulate the nutrient solution and oxygen to the roots of the plants. A simple depiction of the system is as follows:

(iii) The Drip System The drip system is the most widely used type of hydroponic system, with a simple timer-controlled operation and a submersed pump. A depiction of the drip system is as follows:

Figure 1: Floating Raft System

Source: www.homehydrosystems.com

Figure 3: Solid media grow bed-type

Source: www.simplyhydro.com

Crops most often grown using this system are fast growing plant which have high water uptakes,

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The timer turns the pump on and nutrient solution is dripped onto the base of each plant by a small drip line. The excess nutrient solution that runs off is collected back in the reservoir for re-use. The growth media normally used are loose perlite or other similar light-weight materials such as cocopeat, expanded clay, and lava rocks. (iv) Nutrient Film Technique (NFT) System The NFT system is one of the more commercialized versions of hydroponics. This system employs a constant flow of nutrient solution, and thus, no timer is required to control the submersible pump. The nutrient solution which is pumped through the growth tray (normally a PVC tube) flows over the roots of the plant, and drains back into the reservoir. A depiction of this system is as follows:
Figure 5: Flood and Drain System
Source: www.hydro-heaven.com

(vi) Aeroponic System The most high-tech type of hydroponic system, the aeroponic system uses air as the growing medium. Roots hang out in the air, and are misted with nutrient solution every few minutes. Like the NFT system, the roots are exposed and are thus highly vulnerable to power outages and cycle interruptions.

Figure 4: Nutrient Film Technique System

Source: www.hydro-heaven.com

There is usually no growing medium used other than air; the plants are supported by small plastic baskets with roots dangling. Though efficient, NFT systems are very susceptible to power outages and pump failures, which result in plant roots drying out very rapidly when the flow of nutrient solution is interrupted. (v) Flood and Drain System The flood and drain system works by attaching a timer to a submersible pump which periodically activates to temporarily flood the grow tray with nutrient solution, and then drain it back into the reservoir. As with the NFT system, it is susceptible to power outages and cycle disruptions. A depiction of this system is as follows:

Figure 6: Aeroponics System

Source: www.hydro-heaven.com

The good thing about the aeroponic system is that it maximizes use of small spaces when placed in vertical form.

There are many ways to design a working hydroponics system using commonly found materials from home improvement. In the next issue, we will focus on how to construct a simple hydroponic system using recycled materials. Article by MJ Joel

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Upcoming Event Event Title

Agriculture Investment Summit Asia 2012 2nd ASEAN Sago Symposium 2012 BioMalaysia 2012 Malaysian Agriculture, Horticulture & Agrotourism International Show (MAHA) 2012 International Conference on Agricultural and Food Engineering 2012 Taste Fully Food & Beverage Expo

Date

Venue

Website/E-mail
http://www.terrapinn.com/conference/ag riculture-investment-summit-asia/ http://sagosym2012.blogspot.com/

16-18 Singapore Oct. 2012 29-31 Kuching, Sarawak, Oct. 2012 Malaysia 5-7 Nov. 2012 23 Nov. -2 Dec. 2012 26-29 Nov. 2012 14-16 Dec. 2012 KL Convention Center, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Malaysia Agro Exposition Park, Serdang (MAEPS) Selangor, Malaysia

http://www.biomalaysia.com.my/2012/

http://www.maha.gov.my/2012/

UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia

http://www.eng.upm.edu.my/cafei2012/

Putra World Trade Center, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

http://www.biztradeshows.com/tastefully-food-beverage-expo/

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Meet Our Team!

Johnny Lak
Businessman. Innovator. Activist. But not necessarily in that order. Keen entrepreneurial skills, and a great passion towards agriculture and knowledge. Operates farms in Pajam and Mantin.

Mr Farmer @ Raymond
Agriculture entrepreneur and passionate about living life with a sense of purpose, our friend owns a farm in Keningau over at the Land Beneath the Wind, Sabah.

KW Beh
Fertility, fertility, fertility. Thats what our UPM Grad constantly has on his mind while working for Twin Arrows Fertilizer. Want to improve crop production? Look him up for the solutions!

Senny Ong
Our resident Chinese Herbal Specialist with a passion for the bitter stuff. Enjoys helping people seek a healthier path in everyday life. Now say with her: Bitter herbs are our friends

MJ Joel
What do you get when you cross a potato with corn? Thats the sort of questions this bookworm and plant breeder seeks to answer. And its definitely not what you think it is, dirty fellow!

Contact Point: For more details about what we do, please refer to the Lowyat Forum Thread: Venturing into Agriculture& Aquaculture For further information or clarification please contact us at agrinaquanewsletter@gmail.com

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