Malacca, July 28, 2010 - It is again the harvest season of Duku Langsat for the ancient city of Malacca. The extraordinary good selling price of it has pleased farmers there. Today, the wholesale price of Duku langsat is RM 4.50 per kg. The amazing price is expected to stay most probably for a longer time. Due to this reason, Mr. Chan, who has been engaging himself in fruit plantation for several decades, is very experienced in planting duku langsat. Mr. Chen’s hard work has been paid back as the fruits matured a month earlier than usual and he could be the first people to sell them in the market and earned a great profit. He can get 20 to 30 baskets of duku langsat a day and he sells them to Singapore as well. Nevertheless, he had experienced a bad time when he had to bear a great loss as its price dropped to 60 to 70 sen per kg. He could not even cover the pay of his workers. He then sold out partial of his orchard as he had lost confidence in planting fruits at that time. He did not expect to receive a good result this year. He admitted that it was indeed hard in taking care of the fruits and bats were the biggest enemy of farmers planting duku langsat. Therefore, they had to take precautions against bats to prevent the fruits from being spoiled by them overnight. Fighting against bats In order to chase away the bats, he has recruited many workers. The workers are responsible in plucking duku langsat during daytime and set off firecrackers at midnight in the orchard in order to chase away the bats which come in a group. It is done especially duku langsat is having an extraordinary good price now. In addition to duku langsat, rambutan is also having a good wholesale price of RM2.50 per kg.
Although the wholesale price of duku langsat could be as high as RM5 per kg in the past, farmers are still pleased with the current price of RM4.50 per kg as they can still gain a high profit from it if its price can be remained constantly.
Owner of an orchard in Merlimau, Mr. Chen said during an interview with Sin Chew Daily that knowledge and experiences were important for people who were engaged in fruit plantation.
For example, duku langsat was a type of seasonal fruit and had a high demand in water supply. Therefore, the skins of the fruits would crack if the fruit trees were lack of water. This would cause a profit loss.
He has spent more than RM10,000 to install water conduits in his 8-acre orchard and he uses a waterpump to pump water from a big pool for watering purpose.
