Sawit success

Two big bunches can fully load a wheel barrow with average weight of 20 kilo per bunch.

It sounds familiar - sweet success.  After a while, after proper care and maintenance of the oil palm trees you can achieve the standard of 20 kg and above per fresh fruit bunch.  The trees that can reach this standard are those that have been grown for about 7 years or more.  Now more and more trees at the park are able to produce 20 kg per bunch of oil palm fruits.  There is no secret to this sawit success.  It is just plain fertilising.  Oil palm trees react well to fertilising.  On the average  the standard is 1 kg of fertiliser per tree per month.  It is very much left to the wisdom of the planters whether to apply the fertiliser per 2 or 3 month basis.  Now don't try to over-fertilise the plants.  This is because you don't want the fruit bunches to weigh 30 or 40 kg per bunch.  Reason?  Who's gonna lift the bunches that heavy during harvesting, carry them on the wheel barrow or load them on the pick-up or lorry?  Imagine harvesting and lifting 50 bunches of 40 kg bunches a morning.  And another 50 bunches in the afternoon.  And who's going to repeat the work tomorrow?  Over-fertilising is not only a waste of money but can play havoc to soil long-term health and a major attraction for pests that devour the tempting fat and very green oil palm leaves for delicious breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Under the green umbrella

Oil palm trunk with a wide sampling of ferns, and seed plants taking advantage of the fertile fibrous growing medium found between the cut leaf bases and the trunk.

Fungi on rotten leaf bases

 The Oil palm trees (Elaies guineensis) or Sawit in Malay are the main identity of the Kambatik park.  They help sustain the park's operation.  When harvesting the fresh fruit bunches, the leaf bases that are cut leave a space between the cut branches and the trunk.  The leaf bases are constantly moist and they trap small insects, birds and other small animals' droppings, dead organic matter like fungi or mushrooms etc.. They provide ideal conditions for many plants to thrive on.  Chiefly among them are the epiphytic ferns, and plants that produce seeds and are eaten by birds and other animals and are later discharged in their droppings and got trapped in the fibrous and fertile growing medium between the leaf bases and the trunk.  It would not be surprising in future also to see orchids growing from these leaf bases.

Bird's nest fern (Asplenium nidus)

Climber

Ficus benjamina

Miding (Stenochlaena palustris) - at the centerr of the picture

Rabbit's foot fern ( Davallia denticulata)

Broad leaves of the Simpoh ( Dillenia suffructicosa)

Paku Uban (Iban) - Nephrolepsis acutifolia