By Sheeda Fathil
SABAK BERNAM, Jan 15 — The Selangor Melon Farm (MeloSel) in Sungai Besar has successfully produced its first crop of 500 melons since it was planted here two months ago.
State executive councillor for agriculture modernisation Izham Hashim said the crops were part of this year’s Sabak Bernam Development Area (Sabda) project.
“This fruit is also the result of research from five seeds specially made by a Selangor local company, which is why we named it MeloSel due to its exclusivity and premium quality.
“This is also the first location where MeloSel is planted commercially using smart farming methods by local entrepreneurs. Congratulations to the people behind the effort and may it continue,” he said when met after inspecting the agrotourism product at Sungai Panjang MeloSel, here yesterday.
Izham added the farm will be used as a tourism location in the future.
“We will research to improve MeloSel cultivation because the period of time to produce this fruit is at least 60 days and for now we need to find a way to maintain the quality of the seeds.
“Right now, it is exclusive only in Selangor before being marketed to other states and we set the price at around RM25 per kilogram,” he said.
Last June, Tengku Permaisuri Selangor Tengku Permaisuri Norashikin launched five plant seeds at the Selangor Fruit Valley.
In addition to two types of melon seeds (crunchy and sweet), Her Royal Highness also launched two types of corn (grain and sweet) and papaya produced by Green World Genetics Sdn Bhd.
At the launch, Tengku Permaisuri Selangor also chose some suggested names such as Melon Selangor or MeloSel for the crunchy variety.
