Abdul Wahab Ismail began to clear his land of eight acres (about 3.2 hectares) in year 2000 to plant oil palm after taking the advice of the General Manager of PPK Bentong, Pahang. He was 60 years old then.

After two years of planting, the efforts of Abdul Wahab began to show some results. However, the yield of the oil palm trees was not as high as expected. Abdul Wahab related that he had a lack of knowledge in oil palm management especially in the area of oil palm nutrition. He merely followed his friends’ advice in making fertilizer purchase decisions. There was once he even went all the way to Dungun, Terengganu, to buy the fertilizer recommended by his friend.

In year 2005, he met with a TUNAS Officer from the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB), Engku Norsupian Ardi Engku Nordin, who advised him on the best practices of oil palm management in field management and oil palm nutrition.

Upon receiving the advice of Engku Norsupian Ardi to use the fertilizer developed by MPOB, Abdul Wahab began to use MPOB F1 compound fertilizer in his field. He applied the compound fertilizer around the palm circles at the frequency of three times a year. The dosage for each round of application was at the rate of 2.5 kg of MPOB F1 compound fertilizer per palm.

“When he came to visit my field, the palm fronds were yellowing due to irregular field maintenance. After following his advice, the health of the palm trees began to improve. Thereafter the palm trees produced more yield which gave me a significant increase in income,” Abdul Wahab said.

In 2005, his field produced 24 tons of fresh fruit bunch per hectare year. It increased to 25 tons in 2006, 27 tons in 2007, 33 tons in 2008 and up to 37 tons in 2009.

Abdul Wahab recently received the Best Oil Palm Smallholder Award (Peninsular Malaysia) at the Oil Palm Industry Award 2009/2010, based on his outstanding achievement.

Besides his oil palm field, Abdul Wahab who is now 70 years old, manages a 22-acre plot of rubber trees, a 6-acre fruit trees orchard and a general goods store together with his family and some workers.

He is now enjoying the fruit of his labour and hopes to pass down his knowledge to his children. He also acknowledges the help of the TUNAS officer from MPOB who has helped him to achieve this success.

This is a testimonial story of Mr. Tew Han Kiong, who lived in Kampung Parit Khalid, Tg. Sembrong Parit Raja, Batu Pahat, Johor.  He had been a full-time oil palm smallholder since he was 20 years old.  Together with his wife, Heather Lee Pei Ling, they raised their three children with the income generated from managing their oil palm business.

Mr. Tew managed a field size of 1.4 hectares that had a type of river silt soil series.  He planted his field with Guthrie’s Dura X Pisifera (DXP) planting material in a triangular system with a distance of 9m x 9m x 9m, at 148 stands per hectare.   The early stages of preparation were financed with his own working capital.

Mr. Tew implemented good management practices in his oil palm field based on the advice of Malaysian Palm Oil Board’s (MPOB) TUNAS officers.  He kept proper field records, maintained a balanced fertilizer formulation program (applied MPOB F1 oil palm fertilizer at a rate of 8 kg/palm/year over 4 rounds) and made a joint harvesting and pruning rounds every 15 days.