Chapter 17 .Initial Maintainence Of the Plantation

It was definitely one huge surprised when I first stepped into those fields of the plantation.Those fields although fully matured,their condition could only be termed as fair.

From the road side.all the fruits were clean almost clear of weeds,but it gradually became bad to worst as one rolled down its ravines.There were no linked roads to the far bottom end.Whilst the palms were young all harvested FFB could be carried to the middle road.Of course when the palms became older,the bunches of fruits were automatically increased in its sizes,making it difficult to carry uphill.

Talking about roads there were some existing road whereby most were old timber tracks.Timber tracks do not suit in the harvesting pattern.Timber tracks served loggers well but not the harvesting of FFB,worst still should the palms be older.

So with this how can I not served the Company well,as everything seemingly handed to me on plate.Immediately I put my experienced in to full used.The ravine roads were constructed.With that all crop were not only harvested but removed back to the Mill,even those that had fallen into the lake sides.

Spraying of weeds could reached every where,the contractors now had larger track of land to cover with those old spraying rates remaining the same.The contractor could not make any profit with this,yet they stayed on.The only person happy appeared to be the Boss for now he could go directly into those bottom fields to see things for himself.

When making the roads at those ravines all existing thick bamboo grooves were cleared.Clearing them manually was impossible but the bull-dozer handy there were no problems.All along people for reasons beyond my comprehension had refused to pushed all those bamboo grooves into the nearby lakes.

In reality my dumping all those bamboo grooves into the lakes encouraged the fish populations to increased tremendously,providing them with ample food supply and hiding places from bigger fish and reptiles.This plantation has many natural lakes,one huge lake and many smaller lakes.

All these lakes provided good fishing grounds for people living nearby.They were kampong folks who relied on the lakes for a livelihood.There are also many lakes within the jungles nearby which also provided the same.

Anglers from as far as Kuala Lumpur came here to fish during weekends in the plantation's lakes as as well as the numerous lakes in the nearby jungle.This plantation as well as its adjacent jungles were also hunting paradise for hunters.The jungle were hunted until most of the wild animals within were extinct.The amount of "rela" guns given around the new village and "kampongs"helped to deplete the jungle of those wild animals.

Tigers and "seladang" were not spared either.Of course those wild elephants being a pest of the plantation were also eliminated for good.Those plantations around could not help them and all the planters had jobs to do that were to established their new plantings of Oil Palm without any damages from those pests.

With the new ravines roads done,I continued to construct further roads in the middle of most of the fields.Only adversity within these were that we do not have laterites suitable re-surfacing of all roads.Whatever it was top priority was to have the main road strong and secure for heavy vehicles as the main road leads to the Mill.

It was,therefore utmost important that there was no let down here and had to be maintained with laterites and stones from outside sources.Once I had this main road to the Mill from town and all other main field roads re-surfaced with mining stones from the Gold mine in Luit.

Resurfacing the other field road could be extremely expensive.Whatever it was this being a hilly plantation,transporting all harvested back to the Mill was extremely difficult especially during the rainy weather.Fortunately we had the bull-dozer around to help us tolled up from the ravines to the main plantation roads.

When topping up the main road we also make various attempts to re-surfaced those steep roads but to no avail,for those will easily removed as the tractor making attempts to climb those steep slopes dug into the roads.Very often very deep tracks were cut into those roads.The service of the bull-dozer was thus invaluable.

Initially we had on old Caterpillar D4,later we acquired another larger model D 6.We brought it second hand at a really cheap price.We also brought another "white elephant",a second hand D 10(D 10???,yeah I have forgotten,sorry),though a write off piece of metal,worth its cost in iron materials but it could still served us in time of need.My Boss apparently is a collector of old bull-dozers.

My wish was if only he could further equipped me with another backhoe it never came by.So my plans to have side drains for all our field roads was never accomplished.My other backhoe was used to dig bigger planting holes for my replanting.

I had initially made bigger planting hole for my supplies of oil palm seedlings into part of a field where laterites had been removed for road works.The flatten areas seemingly barren,the soil was hard so hard even grasses refused to grow there.So I had big holes 10 feet by 10 feet,with depth about two feet,then had them filled with top soil from elsewhere.

The Oil palm seedlings planted there grew up very fast and within two years we had some harvesting.This method had been tried out in a plantation in Malacca by a Chinese plantation owner and he claimed to have better growths and yield in his fields.

My Boss knew about it and sent me there to observed what had been done there.When I reported my findings to him he encouraged me to do the same with our replanting.That was how I got involved in this big holes replanting.Ours was low budget replanting as we only poisoned our palms in stages.

With linnning done the proposed replanting area was terraced and big holes dug in.The poisoned palms died slowly and its fronds dropped gradually,only thing we had to clear all dried leaves on young palms every now and then.Spraying of weeds were slightly hindered.

My Boss always interested in new crops or any other alternatives to Oil Palm planting.Someone told him about Jati (teak) and without hesitation he placed orders for them.We of course had ti listen to him,so a nursery for them was set up.

He had no intention of really planting them as a crop,just simply planting them out of curiosity.An agent from Kedah supplied us with the germinated seedlings.It grew well im the nursery but in the field it was totally different.I was instructed to have them planted in the inter-rows of the new replanting.

Their growths thus varies from locality to locality.Down the ravines sides they grew well and fast but not so on the hill sides.Unlike rubber its shoots were plentiful so to maintain a straight stem were almost impossible of the ways they branches about.The best I could acquired were about slightly more than ten feet of straight stem no more.I had experienced of them for only three years or so.

Another crop we tried on was Jojoba and I too attended a seminar on it in Penang but to no avail the crop was a big flop.A batch of seeds ordered by our supplier did pass the nursery stage.The seeds germinated and grew well in the polythene bags,but once they have depleted the food in the seeds they just withered off.That was never a crop to be for Malaysia.


to be continued