Trip to Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI) - Part 1

One weekday, Mommy found the opportunity to pick Juan Or up from the babysitter's house to take him for a short outing to MARDI Headquarters at Serdang. But why a place like MARDI, you must be wondering? That's because MARDI has nice agricultural landscapes, plus some recreational landscapes as well. Because Papa was working that day, so this was considered Mommy's first solo outing with Juan Or.


To reach MARDI without using the toll way, Mommy used the Sri Kembangan way which passes by South City Plaza and then kept right (the left is Mines Wonderland) to lead to a highway (SILK highway, perhaps? Not sure!) which leads into UPM area and from there headed into MARDI. Upon reaching the main entrance of MARDI, Mommy told the security guards that Mommy wanted to go buy vegetable seeds from Unit Pengeluaran Bahan Tanaman, Biji Benih dan Baka Ternakan (Unit of Planting Material, Seeds and Farm Breed Production), so Mommy got the visitor's pass after giving the guard the driving license.


Upon reaching the unit, Juan Or was already fast asleep, but luckily it wasnt' too difficult for Mommy to wake Juan Or up without making him fretful - Juan Or happily woke up, much to Mommy's surprise!


Mommy went to see what seeds were on sale that day - turned out that only cucumber, chilli padi, round brinjal and long bean seeds were available. So Mommy didn't buy any of those seeds because Mommy has them already. So off Mommy went to see what fruit tree plantlets were on sale this time. The last time Mommy went to MARDI looking for pisang berangan plantlet, there was no stock. However, this time, they had pisang emas and pisang nangka only (pisang berangan was still out of stock but is available at the Jalan Kebun branch of MARDI), each plantlet sold for RM2. During Mommy's tour round the plantlets-for-sale nursery, Juan Or had a good time too with those fruit tree plantlets in polybags that are about as tall as him!






(Juan Or was playing hide-and-seek with Mommy. "Juan Or, you think Mama cannot see where you are hiding meh?")






(Juan Or seems to enjoy stepping on those tiny pebbles covering the floor of the nursery.)







(Mommy managed to capture closer view of Juan Or walking around happily.)

("Juan Or, you are still not done with stepping on those pebbles?")



(Juan Or was so happy to be here.)





("Juan Or, cannot pluck those leaves ah! Mommy is not buying those plantlets.")







(An ever-so-curious Juan Or walking to and fro, in and out of the maze of fruit plantlets in-polybags.)

In the end, after browsing through the nursery, Mommy bought a pisang emas (RM2), 2 round brinjal (RM1 each) and 2 chilli padi (RM1 each) plantlets - all in all RM6. Shown here are the plantlets which Mommy has already transferred from the polybags to the garden soil.

(Left is round brinjal and right is chilli padi.)






(The pisang emas plantlet.)

After Mommy was done with buying plantlets, Mommy took Juan Or (by some short driving distance) to the "Edible Landscape" - so stay tuned for the next blogpost!