Category: News From The Field

The view from the side of the worker house look beautiful, the teak trees are growing tall and healthy. Solomon teak is really the best teak tree, the trunk grows bigger and stronger, the leaf grow green without caterpillars and the root goes down in the ground and grows strong without disease.

At this time, water resources are drying, and water is very limited at one or two places in the field. Some of the workers try to find the water resources down the river in the village. Beside to find new resources, the side manager will bring water from outside the village.

Acacia, mahogany trees are now 5 months old, The survived acacia look good and healthy. They are well maintained and protected from the diseases and pests. Every day, one or two guardians check the trees condition, they have to cut the wild grass around the trees and make sure that all tree get enough sun light and get enough nutrition (the wild grass takes the soil nutrition).

Last week, all workers has given working equipments like hoes, cutting knives, sickles. Rainy season does not end yet, so the grass keep growing. If the grass grows faster, it will take the soil nutrition more and the trees will grow slow. Especially in early hot season, the land will have less water and get more sun light.

The young teak trees now is about three to four meter high for the healthy and survived ones. The last planted trees and replanted trees now are about one to two meters high.

The trees that get less sun light now growing higher because the bamboo trees which cover the trees were already cut off.

On July 8th, all Indonesian voted for the President and the Vise President, all the workers participated also, even they became supporters one of the candidates.

Cibening village now is growing, not only the economic, social, education, religion but also politic in simple way.

Some new trees grow faster than the others, the height is almost two meters or more, and others still have normal height about one and half meters.

The replanted trees now grow well and have normal height, about 75 cm to one meter. 
All trees have enough sun light and water, they have big trunk and wide leafs. Every month it will grow new bud and the trunk will grow high and big.

Guardians have a right to take a rest for lunch, pray and coffee/tea, usually they take a rest at gazabos or go back to their house. Some of the guardians take an opportunity to smoke, because they are forbidden to smoke at the field.

Wife of pak Zaini (Goldteak site manager) donated several sacs of cements to the Madrasah (Islamic school) at Cibening village. This is a personal donation, she and her family gave support to the school.

The village now have an elementary school and also a madrasah school, the children have an opportunity to develop their knowledge for both need, emotional and intelligence knowlwdge.

Since Goldteak has been giving the support for the school, people also expect that Goldteak can support the madrasah as well.

In the new plantation area, 20 ha, Goldteak also planted fruit trees; durian trees, orange trees and mango trees. These trees also need maintaining like cutting the sedge grass, giving the insecticide and fungicide.

Planting the fruit trees in the new plantation area give an opportunity to goldteak to provide an extra income for the guardians during the growing years. The guardians also have an opportunity to plant the green beans surround the house. They have already got the first harvest last month.

Planting fruit trees in the new plantation also give a variation of plants. The land will have Monoculture of teak trees and fruit trees as a balance. It creates the good ecosystem in the plantation.

The two years teak trees still need regular treatments like cutting the sedge grass, opening the soil around the tree, cutting the branches and giving the insecticide and fungicide.

Some guardians use manual system to spray (using the plastic bottle and manual sprayer) and cut the sedge grass by using chopping knives.

Because the sedge grass grows fast, two weeks later after cutting or spraying it is already half meter high. Guardians need to work hard and fast to cut or spray the grass with limited tools because the to cut the grass need to use strong knives and sprayers. The knives and the sprayers are sold in a market usually do not last long. The strong knives should be made by an iron smith and the price is more expensive. The stainless still sprayers are stronger than the plastic ones.

The teak trees are 4 months old, they grow well and healthy. To make the trees are always healthy, we have to do maintaining like cutting wild grass (sedge-grass) around the trees, giving insecticide and fungicide to protect the trees from insects pest and fungi.

Sedge-grass take the soil nutrition near the trees, when we cut them the soil around the trees will receive the ultra violet and it will help the trees absorb the nutrition well.

Other grass like King Grass is needed to avoid erosion in sloping land, teak trees have stilt rood and for the young ones they are not strong enough to hold the soil, the King grass will help the trees to keep the nutrition so the roots can absorb the food easily.

The area of plantation is surrounded by agricultural area like pddy field and vegetables garden , the pest which attack this area will migrate easily to the plantation by wind or beetles.

We have to make terraces on the sloping land, not only to protect the land from erosion but also to give the trees enough sun light from all sides.

There are several trees can not survive from decease caused death, most of the cases are from the pests, fungi or less treatment.

The plantation now looks green, we can see from the guardians houses or gazebos. The trees grow taller, the leafs grow bigger and the root grow stronger.

The young trees now are growing faster with well maintaining. Although some trees can not stand with the disease and they were about 500 trees died. Replanting has been done lately and a maintaining for premature trees should be done very carefully.

There are several guardians from the previous project move to the new project to help the new guardians. They basically divided into areas, they work in north, south, west and east area. Some guardians spray the trees, some guardians cut the wild grass, some guardians put fertilizer and some open the soil around the trees and also give water to the trees.

The new three gazebos and two houses for the workers has been completed. There are four families stay at the new house and the gazebos are already used for day rest. The new houses are completed each with a restroom and toilet, the guardians put some plants in front of the house. They also plant vegetables, chilly and tomato trees. They built a goat and chicken house.

One of the supervisor had green bean and soya bean harvest, he also harvest a giant cassava. The tree has about 40 to 50 kg cassava, at this time he does not sell it because he can not afford to pay the transportation to bring it to the market.

Sukabumi village nowdays has an epidemic chicken pox, some of the children in Cibening area got a chicken pox. Up to now, the local government has not come to the village to give the medication. One of the guardian’s son got chicken pox also, Goldteak sent him to the doctor.

Working safety equipments are needed for the guardians, the guardians who do not have boots wear plastic shoes and this makes they feet burnt. The problem is when they have burnt feet, they are easily infected. Now they have new boots and for the burnt feet, Goldteak gave them medicine.

Mid of May, the six grade students (17 students) had a national examination and the other low grades just finished the school examination. During last four years, the school has upgraded the students level. Now they can reach an equal level with other school nearby the village.
End of May, there were four children of Goldteak guardians had circumcision ceremony. They were included the other 300 children who took the mass circumcision ceremony.

Every Friday, one of the guardian joins the local people to build the new Madrasah (Islamic Afternon School), The guardians help to bring the stones from the plantation to build the school foundation.

At the end of March when the trees had been planted completely, the workers start to take care the trees and the land as well. There are some important things in maintaining the trees and the land, clearing the soil around the tree from wild grass, giving fertilizer to the soil and spraying fungicide and insecticide to the trees, watering the trees is also important when the rain is not enough. The healthy trees will grow fast and strong.

Branches make the trees grow slowly, workers have to cut them before they grow bigger. In most case, the land in the teak plantation is quite sensitive at the beginning because clearing made the land is bold and young trees can not hold the soil. Sometimes erosion can not be avoided in loop land. That is why, friendly grass is still needed to cover the soil.

Young teak, mahogany and acacia trees with good maintaining have strong trunks and big leaves. No diseases or caterpillars attack the trees. Caterpillars usually appear two or three days after raining, they eat green and fresh leaves at night, soon we can see their eggs when we do not spray them with insecticide.

Not only teak trees, mahogany, acacia but also fruit trees like durian and oranges also need fertilizer. Bio fertilizer is friendly to an environment, if it is possible the chemical fertilizer should be avoided. Beside for animal food, grass waste can be used as green compos. By giving a regular fertilizer, the trees will grow faster and bigger. We can see the four year Solomon teak trees in Cibening with well maintaining, they are strong and healthy.

Workers usually cut the grass traditionally by using hoes, copping knives and grass-knives/sickles, they also use the grass cutting machine and spraying plastic bottles. The workers also use water basket and water scope or water hose to give water to the trees. The workers should bring the water from behind the hill by plastic pipes and collect it in the water tanks. There are several small and big water tanks in the new land.

Some workers usually take a rest at new gazebo before they continue working or before they go home. From the hill, we can see a view of young and old teak, the view is beautiful when the sun rises or sets.

The local government officers regularly come to Cibening village to check the balita (babies to five years old) and mothers. They do the baby weighting by traditional scale (like a hammock hang to the hanging scale). They give a family planning advice, but they do not provide the contraception for the men and the women.