Wednesday October 21, 2009

Guide’s green passion bears fruit

By TAN JU-ENG

FOR the whole hour-long journey offroad to Lata Berumbun waterfall in Raub, Pahang, Low Poh the guide talked about only one thing — durian.

Sweet treat: Low about to slice open a fragrant coconut

While we were being bounced violently off our seats and trying desperately to hold on, he went on talking about D24, Elvis Presley, Musang, and “lard texture pulp” durians. He went into detail about the taste and which type fetched the highest price.

It is, however, difficult to stop talking about the king of fruits when Raub is literally reeking of durian with the fruits bursting from the seams of the outlying towns.

When we met up with Low Poh, 46, in Sungei Klau to go to the waterfall, we were amazed to see a wholesale durian depot in every corner of town.

We began to see why houses there generally have long and wide driveways. They were built to accommodate lorries coming in to unload baskets full of durian and other seasonal fruits.

Low, who is a full-time guide and part-time fruit trader, has two orchards. One is four acres and the other 13 acres. He is particularly fond of the small orchard and calls it his “supermarket” to denote the vast variety of fruit trees he has planted there.

What’s unusual about his orchard is that he plants all kinds of hybrid plants there and he could not wait to show it off. The plants include Japanese mangosteen, China tapioca and special fragrant coconut.

His favourite is the seedless lime. Unlike ordinary limes, the seedless lime fruits grow in bunches just like tangerines.

The unusually large fruits grow in bunches of three to six fruits and hang from the tip of a branch.

Big and juicy: The seedless limes grown on Low’s farm

To know if the fruits are ripe, one just has to give it a little squeeze to see if it is soft.

Low has yet to get sufficient yield to make it commercially viable to sell the fruits. He is also experimenting with a kind of wheat plant which he claims is good for the health.

In the middle of the orchard is a pond where Low rears Tilapia fish and around the pond are fragrant coconut trees and this gives him reason to also refer to the orchard as a coconut plantation.

While cutting up some coconut for his guests, he suddenly remembered the Japanese mangosteen which he had planted pretty much to keep up with the Jones’. These fruits are oblong and the flesh is succulent.

The relatively short fruit tree yields only three fruits after two years, seven the next and 11 fruits the following year.

“We definitely cannot make money selling them and we keep it for our own consumption,” he said, as he plucked some local mangosteens for us to compare the tastes. The flesh of the local fruit is softer and juicier.

Low planted the orchard eight years ago and he talks passionately about each tree almost like a father talking about his recalcitrant children.

“See this musang durian tree? I have done everything I could but it just won’t bear more than one fruit for me. And, it won’t die too,” he said.

Apart from having our fill of fruits, Low’s experimental orchard and his passion for growing plants also filled our curiosity.

Take a closer look at Low’s orchard on www.thestaronline.tv/switchup.