Financial Self Sufficiency From The Land

[torrenova]

We might come into some land in Non Suwan, Buriram, part of which is from her family and the other available to purchase (basically getting some extended family out from the burden of loan shark debt). The land for purchase is apparently arable land and has been only periodically farmed due to laziness and available cash from other avenues.

As a non farmer, who has only ever grown garden based vegetables and the like in the UK and Spain and helped in Japan, I do not have a great deal of knowledge to bring to the farming table I admit. However, I am loathed to leave any land unused whether it comes freely or is purchased. Therefore, I beg your help on the following questions (please throw in more information as well).

How do I assess what the land can be used for ?

Given the area, what would be the best use for the land ?

Given that I could not be there 24/7, what risks are there ?

Are short time growing crops better than long term investment ?

How do you work out the labour needed for preparation, planting, maintenance and getting the stuff out of the ground and off to market ?

And finally (for now), what size of plot / total area is needed to achieve reasonable economies of scale and how do you acquire that information ?

Cheers for your help, just a thought at this stage but if its going to generate some reasonable cash then I'd devote some time to it with a long term view to either developing it further or maintaining it as an asset for my daughter.

Edited January 11, 2008 by torrenova

[Lickey]

Torrenova, please dont get a bad thought about Chownahs reply, he has helped me a lot with irrigation/plant protection ideas over the last year and im indebted to him, ive never met Chownah but i think i can read his mind on this one, your post states that you MIGHT have, not HAVE the land, so detailed info of what to grow ect is irelevant,

Ok, lets say you have the land in Burinam, now us farmers want to know what sort of soil you have,red clay or other , do you have irrigation, is it hillside or flat, how many rai,what is growing there now? Cheers Lickey,,

[torrenova]

Sorry, I realise looking back it is perhaps too vague. I will try to clarify.

The land we will get is 10 rai and the other land which we could purchase is another 20-30 rai. Flat land, some used for these knobbly small tree things which they harbest at about 1.5-2m tall. They chop it up and leave it to dry I think. No idea what it is, perhaps feed stuff. Someone said they got 12k for 4 rai from it ? The other land is the same, adjacent but not farmed but has some cows / buffalo on it.

I haven't a full price for the purchase land but my question is purely economic. For simple maths, and these are just made up numbers if the other 30 rai costs 300k then 1 rai costs 10k. If that land can be farmed and produce a net income of 3k per rai then the ROI is 30% pa.

The $64,000 question is whether that amount of land can be used to produce an income worthy of the purchase price.

As to soil type, I have no idea. Sorry.

[thedi]

...the land has been only periodically farmed due to laziness and available cash from other avenues...Given that I could not be there 24/7, what risks are there ?...

The $64,000 question is whether that amount of land can be used to produce an income worthy of the purchase price.

I guess you know this yourself, but here are the things that I would consider:

• Farming is very hard work. 10 rai gives a lot of work, 30 rai a lot more. There can only be profit, if the family is willing to do the hard work - not by engaging laborer - but doing it themselves.
  
• The value of any thing in this world is determined by the effort it took to get it. If you give them land to use for free, that land will have no value for them: it is not their own land (hence no emotional binding) and they did not spend any effort to get it (hence they may hope they can sell it instead of work on it). Naturally, the priority will be to make as much profit with as little effort as possible: i.e. eucalyptus which gives profit in a short time but ruins the earth.
  
• People have different priorities in their lives. If a family is in debts, the reason is, that they spend more than they earned. There are always explanations, but the basic fact remains: they will probably spend more than they earn again or they may at least spend what they got from the fields, not keeping back a part of the profit for later investments.
  

This are the problems that I would check out, before investing with any hope for a return on investments.

As for the type of crop to plant: ask them - they know this best.

Best regards and good luck

Thedi

[ludosiam]

The knobbly tree is probably cassava, a starch producing low effort / low income crop.

If you like to determine what can be done one important aspect is the availability of water. I have a friend in this area who has successfully started a rubber tree plantation, he has sufficient water supply from a bore hole to water the young trees for the first year or so.

[Gary A]

Sorry, I realise looking back it is perhaps too vague. I will try to clarify.

The land we will get is 10 rai and the other land which we could purchase is another 20-30 rai. Flat land, some used for these knobbly small tree things which they harbest at about 1.5-2m tall. They chop it up and leave it to dry I think. No idea what it is, perhaps feed stuff. Someone said they got 12k for 4 rai from it ? The other land is the same, adjacent but not farmed but has some cows / buffalo on it.

I haven't a full price for the purchase land but my question is purely economic. For simple maths, and these are just made up numbers if the other 30 rai costs 300k then 1 rai costs 10k. If that land can be farmed and produce a net income of 3k per rai then the ROI is 30% pa.

The $64,000 question is whether that amount of land can be used to produce an income worthy of the purchase price.

As to soil type, I have no idea. Sorry.

I can tell you a couple of things. The first is that you're not going to get much for 10,000 baht per rai. There is probably a good reason the land is used for cattle grazing. The second thing is that farming is tough and it's REALLY difficult to make any money. The farmers who own land work very hard for Thai wages. I bought my wife two ten rai small farms and if I break even, I'm quite happy. I do get some enjoyment from the ponds and playing with my small tractor but I'm quite happy that I don't have to make any money from the land. Had I planned on making money I would have been quite disappointed.

[Khonwan]

Hi Torrenova

Please find my email to you providing constructive advice from someone who farms for a living.

I choose not to post here any longer in protest at the lack of moderation of this farming sub-forum by anyone with a farming background. The quality of contributions since Ramdom Chance’s effective departure has reduced from extremely helpful to unwarranted sarcasm.

Regards

Khonwan

[twschw]

What's up is a person who is interested in trying to utilize his land in some sort of useful way and is asking for help. Did he get any?

[Khonwan]

What's up is a person who is interested in trying to utilize his land in some sort of useful way and is asking for help. Did he get any?

I completely agree with you, twschw. I have emailed him very constructive advice (as mentioned in my earlier post).

[Gary A]

What's up is a person who is interested in trying to utilize his land in some sort of useful way and is asking for help. Did he get any?

I completely agree with you, twschw. I have emailed him very constructive advice (as mentioned in my earlier post).

The MOST constructive advice you could give him would be NOT to plan on making any money farming. A hobby farm? Fine. To make money and pay for the farm you better have a VERY good brand new plan because most of the other plans have failed. To encourage someone to invest in land to farm is a dis-service to that person. They call it subsistence farming here for a good reason. Farmers who own their land are barely getting by and they can (MUST) live much cheaper than a farang. Maybe some of you are much smarter than I am because I have not seen the first baht profit not to mention the investment.

[twschw]

Very well said Gary. You have given some very sound advice.

[Joe Walshe]

Hi Torrenova

Please find my email to you providing constructive advice from someone who farms for a living.

I choose not to post here any longer in protest at the lack of moderation of this farming sub-forum by anyone with a farming background. The quality of contributions since Ramdom Chance’s effective departure has reduced from extremely helpful to unwarranted sarcasm.

Regards

Khonwan

Sorry to hear that yourself and Random Chance's have ceased contributing to forum. The reduction of input (knowledge & Opinion) will be a loss to all.

[ozzydom]

Hi Torrenova

Please find my email to you providing constructive advice from someone who farms for a living.

I choose not to post here any longer in protest at the lack of moderation of this farming sub-forum by anyone with a farming background. The quality of contributions since Ramdom Chance’s effective departure has reduced from extremely helpful to unwarranted sarcasm.

Regards

Khonwan

Khonwan, We all get a bit miffed with some of the posts on the forum but its a bit defeatist if we all took our bat and ball and went home every time that happened.

Why not work at trying to improve the quality of the farming forum which we all get a lot of benefit from.

If the moderation is your bug bear,why not offer your services,I,m sure that your experience would be appreciated.

If I can put up with old Google finger (alias dont know) I.m sure you can rise above the mire and continue to grace the forum with your wealth of experience.

Cheers

ozzy

[Khonwan]

Hi Torrenova

Please find my email to you providing constructive advice from someone who farms for a living.

I choose not to post here any longer in protest at the lack of moderation of this farming sub-forum by anyone with a farming background. The quality of contributions since Ramdom Chance’s effective departure has reduced from extremely helpful to unwarranted sarcasm.

Regards

Khonwan

Khonwan, We all get a bit miffed with some of the posts on the forum but its a bit defeatist if we all took our bat and ball and went home every time that happened.

Why not work at trying to improve the quality of the farming forum which we all get a lot of benefit from.

If the moderation is your bug bear,why not offer your services,I,m sure that your experience would be appreciated.

If I can put up with old Google finger (alias dont know) I.m sure you can rise above the mire and continue to grace the forum with your wealth of experience.

Cheers

ozzy

Hi Ozzydom

I accept your suggestion and will offer my services. I would like to see this forum offering more constructive advice and information. I would like to see fewer posts putting other posters down. I believe the forum requires moderation to prevent some of the stupid or offensive contributions by some people who seem to have no connection to farming. I want to see a return to the moderation standards of Ramdom Chance.

Rgds

Khonwan

[Khonwan]

Hi Torrenova

Please find my email to you providing constructive advice from someone who farms for a living.

I choose not to post here any longer in protest at the lack of moderation of this farming sub-forum by anyone with a farming background. The quality of contributions since Ramdom Chance’s effective departure has reduced from extremely helpful to unwarranted sarcasm.

Regards

Khonwan

Sorry to hear that yourself and Random Chance's have ceased contributing to forum. The reduction of input (knowledge & Opinion) will be a loss to all.

Hi Joe

Thanks for your comments.

Rgds

Khonwan

[Khonwan]

Hi Torrenova

Please find my email to you providing constructive advice from someone who farms for a living.

I choose not to post here any longer in protest at the lack of moderation of this farming sub-forum by anyone with a farming background. The quality of contributions since Ramdom Chance’s effective departure has reduced from extremely helpful to unwarranted sarcasm.

Regards

Khonwan

For the benefit of other readers, this is a copy of the email I sent (Torrenova: confirmation of its receipt, at least, would have been appreciated):

The crop you describe as being currently grown is cassava (aka tapioca, yucca, manioc, mansapalang). I grow this on part of my 200-rai farm in Nakhon Sawan…and have done so for many years.

I recommend this crop to you since it is a very easy and forgiving crop to grow. It was previously grown for animal feedstuff and for starch in human food consumption. It is now also used for biofuel. This later use has at least doubled the farm-gate price of this crop. The current price is B2,000-B2,200 per tonne More cassava-biofuel processing factories are being opened this year in Thailand so the current price is likely to rise due to increased demand.

You can harvest cassava at between one and two years. Growing the crop over two years (normally actually harvested after 18 months) results in excess of twice that of a one-year crop. Costs associated with two-year crops are also less: you only cultivate & harvest every two years.

One year crop (if properly – but easily – grown, i.e. if the ground is well tilled, correctly fertilised, and weed-killer is applied in a timely fashion) should produce 4 tonne per rai, whilst a two-year cycle crop should produce 10 tonne. You may choose to split your land and alternate your cycles with half being harvested in one year and half being harvested in the following year – this improves cash-flow and helps ease potential labour difficulties, i.e. the potential difficulty of finding enough labour to do the work.

Based on a price of B2,000/tonne, one rai should yield B20,000 over two years. Your costs should amount to just over B4,000 (less if you have your own tractor) per rai over the two years. Your profit is therefore around B16,000 per rai per two years. One-year crops should cost around B3,000, returning a profit of around B5,000 per rai.

These figures are all based on sale of fresh tubers. Dried chipped tubers command a better price (only slightly so when loss of mass due to drying is accounted for) but require a lot more work, risk (economic damage should it rain whilst you are drying them during the two-three days), and availability of a huge concreted drying area – not worth it.

The cost of land purchase @B10,000/rai would be more than recovered after only 18 months. I myself hope to purchase another 100 rai at the same B10,000/rai in the near future – this too shall be wholly cultivated with cassava.

Make sure the land is not prone to flooding (the tubers will rot) and that it is not too rocky (the tubers need loose soil to expand.

[Lickey]

Welcome back Khonwan, its very good to see you posting again, always interesting and totally informative, now, a question for you about cassava, ok, it is very popular in this area, 8 wheelers with a 6 wheel trailer grunt and groan past our house 24/7 this time of year, tubers and chipped, there is a proceesing plant about 1.5k i can see from our farm, which leeds me onto the question, we have 9rai of Papaya coming to the end of its finacial use, problem is sister in law has rubber tree rows about 3 mtrs apart in the papaya, so what im wondering is if we did decide to intercrop with cassava and harvest time come, would this interfere with the rubber tree roots? also, does irrigation help the tubers swell? our farm is hillside with red/clay soil and quite well drained, apparantley, cassava was grown there some years ago, but does it give anything in the way of nutruents back into the soil?

TIA LIckey..

[Khonwan]

Welcome back Khonwan, its very good to see you posting again, always interesting and totally informative, now, a question for you about cassava, ok, it is very popular in this area, 8 wheelers with a 6 wheel trailer grunt and groan past our house 24/7 this time of year, tubers and chipped, there is a proceesing plant about 1.5k i can see from our farm, which leeds me onto the question, we have 9rai of Papaya coming to the end of its finacial use, problem is sister in law has rubber tree rows about 3 mtrs apart in the papaya, so what im wondering is if we did decide to intercrop with cassava and harvest time come, would this interfere with the rubber tree roots? also, does irrigation help the tubers swell? our farm is hillside with red/clay soil and quite well drained, apparantley, cassava was grown there some years ago, but does it give anything in the way of nutruents back into the soil?

TIA LIckey..

Hi Lickey

Thanks for your comments. I planted 70 rai of rubber some years ago (it was largely destroyed by forest fire – my farm boundaries with Mae Wong National Park). I was always told that cassava should not be planted with rubber because of the potential damage during harvest. Sounds like good advice to me.

We don’t use irrigation. As long as cassava is grown during the rainy season (start or end ), irrigation is not necessary. I’m sure light irrigation at the beginning would help though. Be aware, though, that the formed tubers will rot if water-clogged.

Cassava is not a nitrogen fixer – it does not improve the soil. It prefers sandy/loam soil, which allows easy growth of the expanding tubers.

Since cassava is normally planted in raised ridges, make sure these run across slopes rather than down to prevent soil erosion.

Kind regards

Khonwan

[Khonwan]

Sorry, I realise looking back it is perhaps too vague. I will try to clarify.

The land we will get is 10 rai and the other land which we could purchase is another 20-30 rai. Flat land, some used for these knobbly small tree things which they harbest at about 1.5-2m tall. They chop it up and leave it to dry I think. No idea what it is, perhaps feed stuff. Someone said they got 12k for 4 rai from it ? The other land is the same, adjacent but not farmed but has some cows / buffalo on it.

I haven't a full price for the purchase land but my question is purely economic. For simple maths, and these are just made up numbers if the other 30 rai costs 300k then 1 rai costs 10k. If that land can be farmed and produce a net income of 3k per rai then the ROI is 30% pa.

The $64,000 question is whether that amount of land can be used to produce an income worthy of the purchase price.

As to soil type, I have no idea. Sorry.

I can tell you a couple of things. The first is that you're not going to get much for 10,000 baht per rai. There is probably a good reason the land is used for cattle grazing. The second thing is that farming is tough and it's REALLY difficult to make any money. The farmers who own land work very hard for Thai wages. I bought my wife two ten rai small farms and if I break even, I'm quite happy. I do get some enjoyment from the ponds and playing with my small tractor but I'm quite happy that I don't have to make any money from the land. Had I planned on making money I would have been quite disappointed.

"...you're not going to get much for 10,000 baht per rai"

Not true, Gary. The low price, in all likelihood, only reflects that the land has no chanote (clear title). I have 200 rai of such land (and before the linguistic purists point it out...obviously not in my name) and want to buy more...because it makes money. Even if only rented out, the yield (approx. 6.5% initially against B10,000...rising every year) sure beats the bank.

Rgds

Khonwan

[Joe Walshe]

Khonwan,

we have land in Loei, where we grow Eucalyptus,and Chumphae, where we plant a variety of vegetables, mango trees, banana etc. I wondered about planting some Casava on soem of our land, maybe 20 rai. My concern would be, does Casava damage the soil over the two years or if after harvesting you plant it again ( as opposed to rotation cropping)? My concern stems from all I've read about Eucalyptus.

[JungleBiker]

Khonwan,

we have land in Loei, where we grow Eucalyptus,and Chumphae, where we plant a variety of vegetables, mango trees, banana etc. I wondered about planting some Casava on soem of our land, maybe 20 rai. My concern would be, does Casava damage the soil over the two years or if after harvesting you plant it again ( as opposed to rotation cropping)? My concern stems from all I've read about Eucalyptus.

Hi Joe,

Sorry my name's not Khonwan! I am sure he will answer you too! Eucalyptus and cassava have earned a bad reputation because they are very good at extracting water and nutrients from the soil (and using them to grow fast!). In my mind this means they are good crops, not bad crops. So, if you don't apply fertilizers, then over a number of years the fertility of the soil will drop. So the answer is to apply adequate fertilizer (every year, not after you have already mined the nutrients from the soil) - which is normal farming practice anyway. It's only bad farmers (not bad crops) who think they can go on taking from the soil and not put anything back.

However, regardless of the crop, rotational cropping is recommended/good practice - i.e. never plant the same crops on the same land twice in succession (paddy rice is an exception though rice would benefit from rotation also, particularly if the other crop is a legume). If possible try to include legumes in your rotations, e.g. peanuts, mungbeans, stylo (this is a good forage for feeding most types of livestock - pigs, cattle, poultry). Legumes use Rhizobium bacteria to fix free nitrogen from the air in their roots some of which becomes available to following crops when the roots breakdown in the soil. I estimate the value of this fixed nitrogen (based on current prices of urea fertilizer) at roughly US$200/ha (or about 1,000 baht/rai); not to be sneezed at.

JB

[Khonwan]

Khonwan,

we have land in Loei, where we grow Eucalyptus,and Chumphae, where we plant a variety of vegetables, mango trees, banana etc. I wondered about planting some Casava on soem of our land, maybe 20 rai. My concern would be, does Casava damage the soil over the two years or if after harvesting you plant it again ( as opposed to rotation cropping)? My concern stems from all I've read about Eucalyptus.

Hi Joe

JungleBiker has said it all; I completely agree.

In the past, we have usually rotated between cassava and maize (whilst still growing both each year). We always grow and harvest mungbeans before cropping maize but I’m going to favour cassava from now on. Maize is also currently enjoying high prices but is always a much riskier crop to grow. Muang beans are harvested after only 3-4 months so fit nicely into a cassava / mungbean rotation system. Mungbeans fix nitrogen, as JB has said. They also produce good biomass that helps improve the soil structure. We (and many other owner-farmers) normally allow others to grow the beans on our land for free. The economics of mungbeans are very risky so we usually avoid the risks but gain the soil improvement and nutrients for free.

To ensure you have available cassava stems for propagation, you need to have another crop of cassava ready for harvesting no longer than one month before the beans are harvested and cassava replanted. The cut stems can easily keep for 30 days (longer is possible but riskier). As a rough guide, one rai of mature cassava trees can provide enough stems to cut and propagate 4 rai. If you don’t have another crop (or if you are just starting), you can easily obtain them from other farmers. I don’t know the current price but, in times of plentiful supply, they can be cut for free whilst short supply creates a price of around B1,000 per rai cut (from my poor memory!).

JungleBiker: I have never researched how much nitrogen is actually fixed. Your figure of B1,000 per rai against the cost of urea certainly interests me. Do you have any research on this? Thanks. Pity we don’t have any potassium fixers!

Rgds

Khonwan

[chownah]

Having a potassium fixer would be great!!!!. There is something that can be done to provide potassium to your crops in some soils.

Some soils have potassium locked up in the minerals but it is in a form that can not dissolve easily and thus is not available for use by your plants. It turns out that decaying vegetable material and associated organisms create mild organic acids which are more efficient at dissolving the mineral potassium and putting it into solution so that it becomes available for plants to use. This of course assumes that your soil does in fact have unavailable potassium in its minerals.....but if it is there its availability can be improved often by increasing the organic matter and living organism content of the soil. This can be accomplished by incorporating crop residues into the soil (don't burn or remove them), growing green manure crops, applying manures and composts, limited use of chemical fertilizers with special care to not over fertilize, limited use of pesticides especially those applied to the soil, and minimize tillage.

Chownah

[Gary A]

Here in Loei, there are some pretty large irrigation projects. The fortunate farmers who have access to this water are getting several crops a year. The plant rice and follow the rice with soybeans. That two crop rotation seems to work quite well. One interesting thing is that they always burn the rice straw in the fields.

[JungleBiker]

JungleBiker: I have never researched how much nitrogen is actually fixed. Your figure of B1,000 per rai against the cost of urea certainly interests me. Do you have any research on this? Thanks. Pity we don’t have any potassium fixers!

Rgds

Khonwan

Hi Khonwan,

I found various references on the internet that mentioned a range of 100 - 300 kg/ha/year fixed by rhizobium in the tropics so I took an average of 200kg and at the time I did the calculation (over a year ago) and using prices of urea in Laos I worked out that a kilogram of nitrogen was worth $1 hence I came up with $200/ha. Of course it could be lower or higher, depending on all sorts of variables like soil type, legume species, rhizobium species, rainfall, etc, but it gives a rough indication of what legumes/rhizobium can do.

JB

Here in Loei, there are some pretty large irrigation projects. The fortunate farmers who have access to this water are getting several crops a year. The plant rice and follow the rice with soybeans. That two crop rotation seems to work quite well. One interesting thing is that they always burn the rice straw in the fields.

Hi Gary,

Yes soybean is another legume that would make a good rotation crop. I heard it does best in the dry season with irrigation, as you mentioned, rather than as a rain fed crop in the rainy season. Pity they burn the straw; seems ashame to lose all that organic matter.

JB

[Khonwan]

Having a potassium fixer would be great!!!!. There is something that can be done to provide potassium to your crops in some soils.

Some soils have potassium locked up in the minerals but it is in a form that can not dissolve easily and thus is not available for use by your plants. It turns out that decaying vegetable material and associated organisms create mild organic acids which are more efficient at dissolving the mineral potassium and putting it into solution so that it becomes available for plants to use. This of course assumes that your soil does in fact have unavailable potassium in its minerals.....but if it is there its availability can be improved often by increasing the organic matter and living organism content of the soil. This can be accomplished by incorporating crop residues into the soil (don't burn or remove them), growing green manure crops, applying manures and composts, limited use of chemical fertilizers with special care to not over fertilize, limited use of pesticides especially those applied to the soil, and minimize tillage.

Chownah

Hi Chownah

Cassava requires a lot of potassium (with some experts advising an N:P:K ratio of 2:1:3). You are, of course, quite correct to advise that the tree portion of the plant not used (at least 25% of the stems will usually be used) should be ploughed back as it contains high residues of potassium.

Minimal tillage is a problem for cassava. I’ve read several studies that indicate (for Thailand anyway) that yields are higher when the ground is well tilled. I normally till with the 7-disk plough then ridge-raise but I’m now going to follow the advice in these reports (not sure if I can find them) to till first with a 3-disk plough (much deeper), followed by the 7-disk and ridge-raiser. The deeper tillage allows for expansion of the tubers – even more important if you are growing two-year crops.

JungleBiker: Thanks.

Rgds

Khonwan

[JungleBiker]

Hi Gents (and any Ladies who may be present),

Here are some of links that provide info about cassava that may compliment the valuable info posted by Khonwan:

Sustainable Cassava Production Systems in Asia: http://www.ciat.cgiar.org/asia_cassava/index.htm (Take care to note that there are links on both sides of the page as well as in the main central column. For example I clicked on one and found this interesting information:

Intercropping

In Vietnam, many small farmers intercrop cassava, mainly with peanut. Peanut is planted either 2-3 weeks before cassava, especially in areas with a cold spring, or at the same time as cassava. Usually one or two rows of peanut are planted between rows of cassava, which are spaced at 0.8-1 m. The peanut is harvested 3½-4 months after planting and before they compete too much with cassava. The peanut protects the soil from rainfall splash and erosion, and this crop’s residues, when incorporated, contribute organic matter and N to the soil. This system usually increases the farmer’s total income, as compared to planting cassava as a monocrop.

Another link: A Review of Cassava in Asia with Case Studies from Thailand and Vietnam: http://www.fao.org/docrep/009/y1177e/y1177e00.htm (can also be downloaded in PDF version, see top right corner).

Web site of the Cassava and Starch Technology Research Unit: http://www.cassava.org/2007/ There are some interesting papers under "Documents" (see menu at the top of the page).

JB.

[Saiyan]

To Khonwan, thanks so much for the copy of the e-mail that you posted.

I have been in Thailand for about a year and a half now and we stay on a farm (45 Rai) in the Sekoew area about 300 Km east of BKK.

Both the wife and I are not farmers and have been fumbling our way around with 5 Rai as the rest was rented out by her father (Which will become available later this year).

We tried all types of vegetables at first, Spring onion , Pukchoi (spelling), Bazil, etc. Worked like we've never worked before for no return and in the end we dicided to do what most of the locals were doing and that was "Topioka" the only name I have known for this until now.

According to the guy that we bought the stems from this type of "topioka" yield a larger tuber than the run of the mill and should be planted in rows 1 m apart and 80 cm apart in the rows. If need be I will find out the name of this Topioka. He claims that we should get no less than 6 tons per Rai if we leave it for 8 months and we should get up to 10 tons per rai if we leave it for 14 months depending on the way we look after them. I have based my calculations on 4 ton per rai to be safe.

I was interested to read the difference it made to leave them for 2 years.

My immediate thought was to go this route.

They have been in the ground now for about 2 months now and are looking very health at about 12 inches high now.

However I am concerned.

1) the ground is more on the clay side and is rock hard especially now in the dry season.

2) I ploughed the ground with a little Kubotor Tractor (Not that walk behind but a sit on one) with a 3 disc several times. (Still looked very shallow to me. Gut feel.)

3) I then made rows with a 2 disc topioka plough. I think you are calling this a riser. (The ground looked much better now. After going over the rows 3 times)

BTW we sprayed weed killer about three weeks ago. And are planinig to give fertilizer when the first rains come.

The ground has never been used for topioka and had cucumber before the vegies and chilli before that.

The ground which will become available later has sugar cane and has had for the las 3 years. We hope to grow cassava here too.

Would you still recomend a 2 year wait or have I done some thing wrong to prevent this or is the ground not suitable or would it be advisable to do a 1year crop first ?

Lots more questions but enough for now.

Hope you have'nt got your head in your hands.

Junglesbiker. I appreciate your input to this forum too.

Da-m no wonder I coud'nt find anything on topioka in google. Or in TV.

[Khonwan]

Hi Saiyan

Thanks for your comments.

I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Lots of farmers till as you have done, very successfully. And I’m sure lots of farmers plant cassava in your area with similar soil. Cassava is very forgiving. At current prices, it is virtually impossible, in my opinion, to lose money: you would need to achieve a yield of only 1 tonne per rai before that would happen. You may only get 3 tonne after 1 year rather than 4, but that’s still a profit of B4,000 per rai against costs of around B2,+++. If you keep it for two years, it may only yield 7.5 tonne, but that’s still a profit of B13,000 per rai against costs of around B3,000. Your costs will be much less than I’ve quoted: you can easily harvest 5 rai yourself without hiring labour. I’m assuming current prices (for my area anyway) of B2,200 per tonne for fresh tubers.

I predict prices will continue to rise for perhaps the next ten years before governments realize that bio-fuel is not the panacea they currently think it is.

You don’t need to decide now whether to keep it for two years: dig up a sample of roots after 12 months and decide then whether to harvest immediately or wait up to a further 12 months.

I don’t have much clay but my ground is also rock hard during the dry season – the tubers still cope. You’ll see the hard soil around the tubers crack as the tubers expand.

There are many reports of cassava yielding 6 tonne per rai over only 12 months. No evidence in my district but I accept these reports. I’m more skeptical over your supplier’s claims. I’d be interested in learning which variety you have, though.

How much fertiliser have you already applied / intend to apply?

Rgds

Khonwan

[Saiyan]

Hi Saiyan

There are many reports of cassava yielding 6 tonne per rai over only 12 months. No evidence in my district but I accept these reports. I'm more skeptical over your supplier's claims. I'd be interested in learning which variety you have, though.

How much fertiliser have you already applied / intend to apply?

Rgds

Khonwan

Thanks for your coments and advise. Feel much beter and not so alone anymore.

The name of the cassava that we are using is "Rayong 7" or the Thai refere to as "khiewplodhni"

My Thai is very limited and the wife is translating info from the locals, who don't tell you everything, so have felt somewhat in the dark.

The guy that we bought the stems from say he has more than 300 Rai cassava, but we have heard that it could be as much as 500 Rai. He also has about 2000 Rai of eucalyptus.

He has sugested we use 15:15:15 fertelizer for the fist time. Have no idea what the second time will be and he says that we should give fertelizer 3 times a year, about a handfull at every plant. (Thai lady handfull)

As yet we have given no fertelizer. I am concerned with it being dry that this will be a bit of a waste.

We have just phoned him and he has invited us to witness him reap 10 ton per Rai tomorrow after only 12 months.

Will take him up on this offer.

At present only the wife and I are working the 5 Rai as a test for the whole 45 Rai.

We do everything ourselves however we did use a skill labor to apply the weed killer at B70 per rai excluding the poison which we supplied. We used Paracot but the guy who spayed suggested we use Gumokzone (spelling ?) for any futher applications. Will check this out with the seller of the stems tomorrow.