Today, there are 200 variants or cultivars of the Durio zibethinus, as registered by the Ministry of Agriculture Malaysia.
PERHAPS many of you do not know that our ‘King of Fruits’ is also available in temperate-climate countries like New Zealand, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and Australia.
Basically, the durian is native to South East Asia and has been growing wild in the Borneo rainforests from time immemorial. The orangutans are known to love it.
It is discovered that the origin of all the durians in Peninsular Malaysia and Thailand are descendants of those from our forests – all the new hybrids and breeds sprung from these parental materials.
Today, there are 200 variants or cultivars of the Durio zibethinus, as registered by the Ministry of Agriculture Malaysia. Of these, the famous clone is the ‘Musang King’ designed as ‘D197’, but there are other much-sought-after varieties as well such as the ‘D198’ (Kim Hong), ‘D159’ (Monthong), ‘D24’ (Sultan) and the latest, ‘D200’ (Ochi, or Black Thorns) that can be picked when still pre-ripe and stored pending transportation.
However, Sarawak has lots of interesting durian cultivars that do not have any registered numbers. Of the famous ones that we have are ‘Durian Kuning’, ‘Durian Tutong’ and ‘Durian Nyekak’.
The Limbang region has a variety that bears fruits on the ground instead of on the branches up high up in the tree. This feature is now promoted in the cultivation of new trees that are pruned or pollarded at 15 feet tall. This character is good for artificial pollination and insect control.
We have been hearing about the Philippines exporting durians from its Davos region to China; hence, durians being newly-established in Hai-nan Island. In fact, durians are spread throughout many parts of South East Asia, and Northern Australia too.
Sarawak still has lots of interesting durian cultivars that do not have any registered numbers.
It is not uncommon for the price of durian to be highly inflated. Such situation is aggravated by the scarcity of durians, so for those few farmers who are lucky to have the fruits in Sarawak, this is bringing them good fortunes.
The vendors are also smart to be selling durians by weight.
That said, there seems to be no famous durian season this year in Kuching, Sri Aman and Sibu – or much of the rest of Sarawak, for that matter.
My recent road trip to Sibu proved that the too-wet weather had spoiled the flowering period.
My village farmers also lamented about very few trees bearing fruit this time.
The claim that the newly-introduced Musang King would bear fruits in five years could not materialise either – my friend said only one out of his 50 trees had fruits.
Another relative in Bintulu had tended to nearly 200 trees for about seven years now and so far, only one had borne fruits!
Owing to the recent demands for durians, especially the Musang King, from overseas markets like China, there has been an uptrend in planting durians and researchers have also embarked on studying the early flowering and fruit setting without having to involve weather situations, especially the need of a dry spell to induce flowering.
Photo shows the durian flowers, which can be cooked and eaten as a vegetable.
Experiments on bio-fertilisers and plant hormone applications have claimed good results in recent years as well.
The studies conducted in Thailand have revealed that each durian varies in its mode of pollination.
There are self-pollination, cross-pollination and even pollination without fertilisation of the arils in the ovules that have resulted in strange or odd-shaped growths, causing early abortion of the young fruits. In commercial farming, artificial cross-pollination to achieve better fruit sets is recommended.
However, the issue of applying inorganic fertilisers to durian trees seems to produce failure in ripening, causing the flesh to become hard, as recently experienced by several farmers in my contacts.
The remedy being introduced is the application of an organic algal ingredient to the roots.
The best is to use the specially-formulated durian fertilisers available in the market now.
Happy Gardening!
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