Agriculture & Horticulture

Biography

Biography: Maclin Dayod

Abstract

Terung Asam Sarawak (Solanum lasiocarpum Dunal) is a unique indigenous fruit vegetable in Sarawak. A recent product development work by researchers in the Department of Agriculture Sarawak showed that the fruit can be processed into various products such as juice, jam, puree and dehydrated slices. These products provide opportunities for commercialization of the crop. However, the crop is very susceptible to many soil-borne pathogens in particular bacterial wilt and phytopthora. This problem hampers the big scale planting of the crop. Hence, grafting work was initiated to mitigate the problem. Six to eight-leaves plants were used for grafting and wedge and saddle methods were compared. Initial studies showed promising graft compatibility between Solanum lasiocarpum as scion and Solanum torvum as rootstock. Yield of grafted plants were between 1.5 and 3.2 kg/plant which is comparable to the non-grafted plants. Saddle technique looks more promising than the wedge technique. Field performances of the grafted plants are being monitored and their fruit nutritional contents will be analyzed.