Sweet Jambu Air Madu

Talk about New Jambu Air Merah Variety?

The matured Jambu Air Madu (Euginia aquea) plucked from 7 years old tree at Kg Relau, Asahan, Jasin, Melaka own by Mr Liow. The fruit selected from 3.5 hectare orchard farm. Average weight each fruit between 150 - 200 gram. I suspect it was a selection from E3 Clone (Red Jambu Air).

The cut fruit is crispy, sweet (10 - 14 Brix) and succulent with attractive red skin color. It was remain fresh for 4-6 days without any cool storage.

Packaging the Jambu Air Madu in the boxes with a layer of old newspaper. There are 3-4 layer arrangement in the box with average of 25 - 40 fruits per box. The fruit arrangement was up-side down to maintain the quality. The ex-farm price about RM 4.00 - RM 5.00 perkilogram. The fruit graded according to their size, appearance, skin color, uniformity and freshness. Most of the outlet market located along the PLUS Highways and retail at RM 10.00 - RM 12.00/kg.

The packaging house for cleaning, grading and packing the fresh fruit Jambu Air Madu from farm located next to the frm. The owner claim that this variety are seedless variety and firm flesh with longer stalk. The numbers of fallen fruit is very low throughout the season. The use of micro-jet sprinkler system ensure the consistant water supply eah tree.

The fruit almost ready for harvest and wrapped with 2 layer of plastic and old newspaper inside. This wrapping techniques to ensure the best skin color. The use of Yara Mila fertilizer and organic manure ensure of fruiting capability 4-5 times in a year with an average of 40-50 fruits each tree/season. He remove other fruits to maintain quality and fruit size each season.

The clean and well managed farm following Good Agriculture Practices, All the fallen leaves was manually collected and processed for compost. The grass was cut manually by machine and never spray any weedicide in this farm. So the farm considered as Organic Farm by defnation. The 5 years old tree are vigirous with shiny leaves and well pruning acitvity.

The fruit wrapped for few weeks before harvest. A single tree may produce between 40 - 10o fruit bunch during peak season but only half are remain. The topping pruning is applied after harvest to maintain the height of the tree for harvesting activities.

Mr Liew (Black T-shirt) explain to a group of DOA Putrajaya Official during Farm Visits lead by me last months. He won first prize during MAHA 2010 exposition Jambu Air Category on the Tropical Fruit Competition. Any body interested to visit this farm can contact DOA Putrajaya or DOA Jasin.

By

M Anem

Chief Delegation

Melaka

Malaysia