Wednesday October 12, 2011Looi’s grape expectationsBy PRISCILLA DIELENBERG
prisdberg@thestar.com.my
GEORGE TOWN: Dr Looi Hoong Thoong is having the last laugh among his friends, who teased him about growing temperate fruits in the compound of his house.
They told him it was impossible for the trees to survive in the country’s hot climate.
Despite their pessimism, computer software developer Looi, 68, persevered and successfully grew apples, Packham pears, apricots, plums, olives, cherries, raspberries, blackberries, grapes and blackcurrants in the yard of his bungalow in Tanjung Bungah.
Fruit of their labours: Looi (left) and his wife Andre Louisa looking at the grapes in their garden orchard in Tanjung Bungah, Penang.
“I believe I am the only person to have successfully grown apples in the lowlands.
“Most people told me I would fail as apples need cold weather.
“Actually, it is not the hot weather that is the problem, but the humidity.Apple trees will grow in places with low rainfall – the rain hurts them,” he added.
Through trial and error, Looi experimented with several varieties.
Some flowered and died after a while until he finally succeeded – after a lot of care – with the China honey red and Granny Smith variants.
He also experimented with more than 50 varieties of grapes and blackcurrants to find which ones were resistant to humidity.
“Grapes actually do well in hot weather. It’s the humidity that affects them.
“When the weather is dry and hot, my grapes are sweet. In the rainy weather, the grapes turn sour,” he said.
He said his blackcurrants are resistant to fungus, require no pruning and bear fruit all year round.
However, he had not been successful in cultivating peaches.
“I had a peach tree which grew 3.3m tall but then it died. Peach trees are very sensitive to their environment.”
Also found in his garden are a variety of flowers, including marigold, iris, stargazer lilies and roses grown by his Australian wife Andre Louisa Looi (nee Krygsman), 63.
Looi, a chartered architect, began growing fruit trees in his private orchard about 30 years ago and now has over 40 trees and 12 types of grape and blackcurrant vines.
Some plants were brought here from overseas. “They are usually cleared by Customs. The Agriculture Department does not mind as long as there is no earth on the plants,” he said.
Besides Looi’s penchant for growing fruits and plants, Looi has great depth of knowledge on information and communications technology and developed the V-Buster antivirus software which is believed to be the first Asian programme to be marketed worldwide which provides solutions for the protection and recovery of critical data.
He has won various awards, including the Pikom-Computimes Product of the Year (Software) Award in 1991.
***suatu yg baru utk saya...harap negara panas mcm malaysia pun boleh export anggur nanti...
Post time 12-10-2011 04:24 PM
变色卡
Author
