FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQ)

Q. What is trunk injection system and how does it works?
A. Trunk injection system is a method of feeding palms by trunk. An 11" PVC pipe is inserted in and feeding is done by filling up the pipe with concentrated and balance nutrients. Feeding is done monthly to ensure a continuous food supply to avoid both nutrients toxicity and deficiency. Fertilizer in the PVC pipe acts as the reservoir. Palms able to absorb and transfer the fertilizer to younger leaves. The well distributed fertilizer all over the palm is being assisted by pH Balancer and Stabilizer, which is added into the fertilizer mixture.

Q. Will the palms die when there is a hole drilled in the trunk?
A. NO. A hole with diameter of 22 mm is drilled into the palm’s trunk and it affects a small part of the vascular system. The drilled hole will heal with the added disinfection agent added in our “pH Balancer” that assists in fighting fungus attack. Within two to three months, the the healed cell will be gripping the inserted PVC pipe. Totally 100% no defects and damages had been recorded. When the hole is examined, cell remains healthy and fresh.

Q. When it rains, will the pipe be filled with water?
A. Yes. Only a small amount of water will drop into the forty-five degrees slanting 22 mm opening. Moreover, the pipe is hidden under the canopy, so the amount of water dropping into the pipe is insignificant.

Q How much is added into each palm?
A. One kilogram of injection fertilizer is able to feed 135 palms. One kilogram of fertilizer is mixed with 9-10 liters of water and 100 ml of pH Balancer. This mixture will be well distributed to each palm feeding 65 ml of complete nutrients to oil palm for maximum growth and yield

Q. Is 65 ml of your fertilizer sufficient to feed the palms for a month?
A. YES. The 65 ml concentrated fertilizer is added with ready available macro and micronutrients. When palms are fed with 100 ml of fertilizer the whole palm will show symptoms of pinnae scorch (leaf scorch), curling of pinnae, much darker leaves (deep green) and palms looks dehydrated during the hottest period of the day. Care must be taken when employing our system in sandy soil area.

Note:
Macro: Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, Calcium and magnesium.
Micro : Iron, Mangan, Zink, Copper and Boron, Sulfur.

Q. During dry season of the year, do we have to stop applying fertilizer?
A. No. This is the biggest difference between the conventional and trunk injection system. There will be a problem in the conventional method as the applied fertilizer on the ground will not dissolve and only will evaporate. The trunk injection system allows you to feed the palm even during dry season. Fertilizers applied through trunk injection system will be stored in the leaves. When palm is in the reproductive stage, it will transfer all the stored fertilizers from the storage (leaves) to the sink area (Flower, seed fruits, root..Etc). Yield will be affected hen nutrients are not moved from the storage area to the sink area when it is needed. It is very important to feed palms continuously so when nutrients are transferred to sink area, older leaves will not show any symptoms of deficiencies and balance of nutrients will be achieved.

Q. How many type of fertilizers are there in Trunk Injection System?
A. There are three types of fertilizers used, namely Injection No.1, Injection No.2 and Injection No.3. They are all formulated with different formulation for different palms requirement during growing (vegetative) and flowering/fruiting (generative). These three types of fertilizers will be rotated every month to ensure a complete supply of fertilizer to palms.

Q. How long do you need complete the installation of the trunk injection system?
A. Normally with three workers they can cover an area of three hectares (hilly land) to six hectares (flat land) a day.

Q. A monthly application sounded very taxing on the workers. In the conventional way, we only apply three to four times a year how could this benefit us?
A. The trunk injection method carries the word of lightweight with speed. We apply only twelve kilograms a Hectare a year while the opposed apply nine hundred to one thousand kilograms a Hectare a year. With the high-speed application method in the trunk injection system, we can apply eight hundred to one thousand palms (6-7 Ha) a day with only one worker. No big tractors and no heavy loads involved. You only need to spend three to five seconds to feed each palm. Saving in labor cost indeed!

Q. How do you know if the trunk injection fertilizer is working on the palms?
A. We will harvest frond No. 9 (young palm) or frond no. 17 (older palm) to analyze the nutrient content before and three months after injection to show the increase of nutrients in the palm. Usually, three months after injection younger shoots and frond will show darkening of the leaves and yield will be increase from 5% to 20% depending on the initial yield record within nine to twelve months after injection.

Q. How long can the fertilizer be stored under normal room temperature?
A. The fertilizer can be stored twelve months. Keep them in cool and dry place. Moreover, you only need a small store to keep them. It is almost ninety times smaller than the conventional fertilizer storage room.

Q. How does the trunk injection system save money?
A. First of all, there is no heavy machinery involved. No high maintenance and expensive spare parts. Transportation with a simple four wheel drive will do the work. Lots of saving on transportation where fertilizer do not need to be transferred from lorry to store, store to tractor and tractor to distribute in the plantation. The lightweight fertilizer can be transported direct from store to palms.

Secondly, no wastage. All palms are fed with fertilizer and almost 100% taken by palms. Thirdly, the cost of fertilizer is more than 30% cheaper than the conventional fertilizer.
Making it cheap and effective. Not only saving it also increases yield for up to 5%-20%. Making it to our slogan "EARN BY SAVING".

Q. How do we order the fertilizer?
A. Our products can be ordered and shipped from Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and South Africa / America. Minimum order of 800 kg/ pallet or 10,000 kg/20 footer-container. Please send you enquiry to us at enquiry@stekken.com , call us at +605.4018.388 or fax +605.4018.399.