DQ Farm (est. 1991) - web

Sustainable Farming - A Model

noreply@blogspirit.com (DQ Farm) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:22:00 +0800

To be sustainable, inputs must be less than outputs. Inputs include fuel and all forms of energy, labour and raw materials. Even treatment of wastes must not consume excessive energy. For a farmer to practice sustainable agriculture, he must derive a reasonable income from his efforts.

This is a model for sustainable agriculture we developed at our farm (click to enlarge):

The only purchased inputs are corn and other feed ingredients. From here, all 'wastes' are recycled. Dung, carcasses, etc are all composted and made into high quality humus. Using humus and compost tea and proper management, an acre of land can produce 30 tonnes of high protein napia grass. This is fed to goats and fish. Using humus and compost tea, and selecting low-nitrogen demanding heritage seeds such as bayam pasir, terung telunjuk, etc we can produce abundant market vegetables.

This how an acre of land may look like (click to enlarge):

We calculated a net income of RM3000 to RM5000 per month is possible from such a farm.

Charcoal for Sustainability

noreply@blogspirit.com (DQ Farm) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 09:45:00 +0800

We produce our own charcoal for multiple use at the farm: to bury carbon as part of the requirement for responsible animal husbandry, to use it to absorb urine and reduce ammonia in litter, to act as a filter in aquaculture, to clean waste water before discharging into rivers, to use as fertiliser for our fruits and vegetables, and to use as a more efficient source of fuel.

We plant fast growing trees such as acacia mangium and gliricidia septium as a renewal source of wood for charcoal production. The fast growing trees are planted where ever we have chickens, even right next to the coops or rebans.

In the fields, they not only convert CO2 to carbon, but also absorb nutrients from the chicken dung.

In this way, we try to reduce our carbon footprint, which should be a required part (and parcel) of the process of raising animals for food.

Click on the picture below for enlarged view:

Grey Water Treatment; mini wetlands

noreply@blogspirit.com (DQ Farm) — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 13:23:00 +0800

The farm produces some grey water - from the workers' quarters, from when we wash the rebans, from overflow from the fish ponds.

All grey water is fed into a mini wetlands; first into a large pond planted with aquatic plants, then led into a biological filter using microbes before being led into a mini wetlands made up of slow flowing meandering channels planted with more aquatic plants.

The entire zone is planted with water-loving, edible plants - bananas, papayas, pumpkins, misai kuching, galangal, pegaga and various tubers.

Before discharging into the river, the water goes through a charcoal filter from charcoal made within the farm (click on the picture for a larger view):

*note: the biological filter and charcoal bed are not in the drawing. They were added during construction.

First Pumpkin

noreply@blogspirit.com (DQ Farm) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:56:00 +0800

Harvested our first pumpkin today. It is actually a variety of Japanese squash, weighing in at 2kg. We saw one sold at Hock Choon for RM10.50 per kg.

Barely 6 hours after harvesting it, it is changing color nicely to a dark golden-brown.

Can't wait for the aging period to be over to taste it.

Sustainable Farming

noreply@blogspirit.com (DQ Farm) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 17:45:00 +0800

Sustainable farming in practice here:

1. This is a 'No-Dig' 35 feet x 10 feet pumpkin patch. Barely 2 months, we now have 42 pumpkins (the red tips mark the pumpkins), with more to come judging by the flowers.

2. The original soil is sandy. We build up the beds using compost, some soil and mulch.

3. Three varieties of pumpkins are planted here, creating diversity to reduce outbreaks of insect or fungal and bacterial problems. So far we have had one bacterial problem which we quickly addressed by uprooting and destroying the plant. Fungal problems have been minimal and have been addressed by quick action using cassia alata juice. Insects have not been serious. The beetle A. abdominalis is present but does not seem to cause any problems to the pumpkin plants.

4. No purchased fertiliser, or any other input have been used here. We only use our farm made compost.

5. We are now looking forward to see whether a second crop of pumpkins using the same plot of land can produce similar yields. That would really be a test of sustainability.

Kerengga - Our Organic Partners

noreply@blogspirit.com (DQ Farm) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:59:00 +0800

Sceptics say, organic durians, sure? How do you handle weevils that just love durians and can easily infest 40% of your fruits? Or what about borers that kill the trees in weeks after you have lovingly taken care of the trees for years? And squirrels, they love the durians, so what do you do, kill them?

Well, we have a few hundred durian and mango trees and we will tell you it's almost impossible (the labour costs will be too high) if not for our "friendly" neighbourhood kerengga ( weaver ants, or oecophylla smaragdina )

Gang of carnivorous kerengga attacking a piece of meat. Meat is used to establish a colony in a new tree.

Kerengga nests the size of large durians.

A tree killed by borers.

A borer hole that’s still active and oozing sap.

A borer hole that's dry after kerengga cleaned out the borers

Highway of raffia strings for the weaver ants to form a colony of 20 to 30 trees around one central tree.

A 20 meter long raffia highway. The ants learn to use it after two days ( with coaching from us of course).

Using the highway

New weaver ant nests as they colonise a new tree.

Once the weaver ants colonise a tree, the borers are gone. Weevil infested fruits and squirrel attacks are almost non-existent. That gives us time to focus on the other major problem with durian trees – phytoptera attacks, for which sadly, we have no answer as yet.