SonnyWaxmo

Looks like the are serious.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/crime/586117/officials-begin-razing-illegal-rubber-plantations

One rubberfarmer with 3 000 rai? No poor village farmer here.

The talk about reclaiming 1 500 000 rai, if so they are talking about 10% of Thailand's total taping area.

This must effect the rubber harvets volume and price in near future.

Regards

Sonny

Been doing a lot of travel down to Surat Thani of late. (Family stuff) The neighbour was just finishing his tapping and Sopha got talking to him about prices. He said something about the Army/Government taking back Tor Bor 5 land. Has anyone else heard of this?

Ithink they are talking about this.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/Forest-reclamation-causing-grief-30261460.html

Shure there must be a lot of farners worring about the future. But as I understand it it is only illigal use of land, but who know what will happen to Tor Bor 5.

Regards

Sonny

had a walk out the "singed" plantation last night. the trees that are good are still waiting for rain as far as I can make out (land very dry) anyone tapping around udon thani? are you seeing good flow??

still no good news regarding the fire damage, might go to court, could go, not really sure....... give it some more time....... the other affected people have taken there trees out already. gonna wait and see if the coming rains will bring some life back into the better of the damaged ones.

if anyone else has problems with fire damaged crops-land when you report the "crime" to the police make sure the fire "expert" person is informed. should be at least one in every province. have meet the one from udon thani and he said this kind of thing is a very big problem, he is very busy, we had to wait for more then two weeks for him to have time to come out and have a look. of course no good to us because all the evidence had been ploughed under by then........ still good to know that this kind of officer is employed.

Hi look om my Pictures (post#499) I took a few years ago when first we had a fire looking more bad than the Pictures from my neighbur. Nearly all the trees are looking good today and they produce normal for our are.

Good luck

Regards Sonny

More rubber will be used in the construction of roads to help deal with an excess supply of the material, Transport Minister Chadchart Sittipunt says.

Mr Chadchart said on Friday he had ordered the Highways Department to study the feasibility of mixing rubber with asphalt to use in road surfacing.

link http://www.bangkokpo...h-excess-rubber

Regards

Sonny

Sorry..

Cup rubber today's action was 40.5 baht per kilo.

First sale of the year was 37, then 39 and then now this price, if it keeps up this trend for a couple of years we'll be back on the gravey train again

We only got 36 baht for cup a couple of days ago. What is this about airless tapping? I must of missed something.

There where a discussion of this Equipment in march 2012, buy that was all. I did some small experiments before. I used addhesive aluminum tape to protect the cut from wind, air and sun. My idea was that the tree should bleed for maybee 12 hours insted of normal 5-6 hours. Whife explained for me all about ting-tong falangs with ting-tong ideas. Guess who was righ? But my filosofy is been ther tried that, but bad idea. Next one........

Anyone knows something more?

Sonny

Price have slowly riced a Little the last days, Anybody sold som cup lump the last Days?

What was the best price?

Now when the price is not to good my brain start to think about less work and solutions for more effectivie tapping.

There have been some posts before on continuous airless tapping Equipment, anybody have some news?

Sonny

Anyone ever transplanted a tree? I just dug up a four meter one and moved it ,it's three year old and I tried to keep a bit of soil around it but it all fell off ,all the leaves fell off and it's been three weeks now .No new leaves yet ,I think it's doomed but was just interested to know if it can be done or has been done successfully by anyone one out there .

Thanks .

Hey have been away from the forum for a while but I would like to share with you what my friend, the gardener taught me.

1.A tree has equal roots as the tree volume above the ground.

2.The tree takes nutrition to the same diameter as the tree crown.

3.Give no, or very little fertilizer at planting, it burns the roots. Water however, it might not be too much of, as long as it drops away.

4.If moving a tree, doing most of the errors in preserving as much of the crown of the tree as possible.

Do this instead, assess how much roots you can get in on the move. Remember the ratio of 1 to 1.

Let's say you only got 50% undamaged roots, cut the tree down by 50%. Then access more similar need.

5.If a tree turns out sick in the head is the fault of the feet. It urged the highest placed branches showing signs of disease, it is a problem with the roots.

6.If the attack comes from fungus or bacteria turns the characters turns out all over the whole tree.

Hope it can help someone at the next tree removal.

Best regards

Sonny

Hi Cobbler

This prick kee gnoo you talked about, have you planted them between rubber trees, or somwhere else?

Regards

Sonny

Between the rubber trees.They don't go well in full sun/.Leaves go all curly.This is why they are 200 baht per kilo wholesale price in dry season and 90 to 100 baht per kilo in low times.They should be ready to pick chillis in february next year.Pickers are paid on a percentage of sale price from local middle men,which is less than price we will be selling them for at a main market.Our trees are spaced 3 meters apart and rows are 7 meters apart..We clear a strip down te center of the row and put 2 lines of chillis spaced 1 meter apart to allow pickers to walk down the center.We also have bananas down the center too.I can't see rubber prices improving any time in the next 2 to 3 years.So we like to make extra money.So far we have 2000 seedlings in the ground with another 3000 seedlings still in the nursery boxes. Really it's quicker and easier and the plants are tougher younger if you just plant the seeds straight into the cleared rows between the trees.Good if the soil is wet at time of planting..Really I'm tempted to fill the whole 20 rai with chillis between the trees,but not sure I can do it all.My wife is already working too hard.We will see what happens.

Thank you for this very detailed reply, let us hear later how it develop.

Thanks

Sonny

Hi Cobbler

This prick kee gnoo you talked about, have you planted them between rubber trees, or somwhere else?

Regards

Sonny

Fire in the rubber farm!

As I earlier said we had a fire passing through our farm 2 years ago. And a friend just a few 100 meters from us had a fire passing through just a few days ago. I show you some pictures and tell you what we did.

This is what caused the fire, the neighbur burned his suguar, and didn't care about his neighbors.

As a result the fire rapidly spread into the rubber farm.

Some trees was burned all the way up to the crown, but bost of them had burnmarks about 1m high.

We "painted" the trees with a calsium - magnesium mix, the thais call it Pohn Kao. The white color should give some more sun reflection, and keep the tree a litle bit cooler. It should also keep some insects away.

The result two years later was small pieces like letter stamps, and new fresh bark under it.

I totaly agree with you that the only way to protect the farm is to try and keep it clean from old leafs and other things.

Best regards

Sonny

How much fire can a rubber tree stand

This a piece of land that ground fire swept through last wed. It didn't look too bad at first, but day by day the leaves are are looking worse. Anyone have any experience?

Land belongs to wifes cousin

Posted with Thaivisa App http://apps.thaivisa.com

Hi I think you don't have to worry to much.

We had a fire passing through our farm in 2010, just before we planned to start our first tapping season. The picture you have uploaded looks about the same as our tree did. Some of our trees where badly burned just up to the crown starts, but most of them had burnmarks about 1m high, mostley on the downwind side.

This is what we did, we delayed the tapping start 1 year, and then we gave som extra fertilizer and looked after theme so no insects start to damage the burned areas. Luckely I must say now 2 years later we didn't loose any tree beacause of the fire, the worst damages you can see is about 30 trees that have deep scares on about 20% of the tree. The most of theme have letter stamps big pieces of old bark coming loose, but fresh and healty bark is now growing again. If we just where lucky? I don't know!

Best Regards

Sonny

Sonny if you google Thailand weather it will give you the Thai government site in English. You can see most of what you want in there, or there is a stcky with link to a weather site in the main farming forum. That should tell you when to expect rain. Wife said she wasn't tapping until we had rain, so I got my red indian kit on yesterday, and danced around the house for an hour. Problem solved.

Thanks, Sonny

Sonny,

I too am confused with the cup rubber pricing.

Our last (small) sale of the season was on 7 Feb, just 5 days after your last sale. We got 65b/Kg and were disappointed. You must have been gutted!

It would be nice to get to the bottom of this.

I am only 200Km from you in Mukdahan and get 25% more.

This just does not add up.

Clive

Yes there is something strange going on.

This is the situation;

It was our first season so we didn't have the experience how to get the best price.

The rubber bussines is rather new in our area, so there is no "plantage owners club", in our around what I know about.

Just the last year there have started app. 3 local rubber buyers and more than 5 baby tree dealers just along the main road. The local dealers say to me they are sellin the rubber app. 500km south.

And next year the will open a huge factory around the corner.

So it's very exiting to see what our second season will give, the new leafs have just come to place and giving us a nice shadow to walk under and try to figure out what the life is all about.

But we are missing some rain here in Udon, have just had 3 days since the end of november.

Best regards

Sonny

Sonny

been over this before, first that web sights numbers, prices always seem high. I don't know what they are referring to as cup rubber, it certainly is not the cup you and Ken sell. It will have been processed in some way. They don't respond to e mails either.

Better to use this web site for price trends http://www.rubbertha...g/price_eng.htm

How it all works is not that difficult to understand.

RSS is sold by grade and the price is what ever per kilo

USS sun dried is sold by weight minus water content. As it is sheet and dry the water content will be small.

Cup is the one that throws people.

Price is set at dry weight, then water,dirt, stones, grass and bark shavings are removed. Thais often think they are pulling a fast one, but they are not. The buyers know the tricks and drop the price to compensate. The seller is the one getting conned. If selling cup, it's better for you to sell clean dry rubber. The buyers will give you a better price. Jim

Ken don't think you will see any big price rises when the new place opens, margins are small and competition fierce already. A month or so ago I looked at the prices. RSS from my front door to warehouse ready for shipping, FOB price [free on board ] was 18 Baht a kilo more. That 18 Baht has to cover all the costs of loading, unloading, transport and 5 Baht tax. Not a lot of fat to cut.

I agree with you Jim ther must be some processing in some way, the price differs to much.

By the way, have a nice trip home. My plan to visit you when we went south this year was spoield by the lack of time. We bougth some 3000 new plants and was in the hurry home. But new time will come and I'm curious to see yor sheet and smoke plant.

Regards

Sonny

Hi again

We have the same situation here, they are building a huge (app 30ha land area) rubber factory in Phsauk (Undon Thani district), It's only 5km from our farm. I'm very curious how this will effect the local prices. The building has been going on for a year and I have heard they are planing to open this year.

There are some different scenarios.

1. The factory set a minimum delivery limit so the local farmers can't sell directly. But the local buyers can rice ther buying price, beacause less expences.

2. The factory will allow farmers to direct delivery and we will get a better price beacause a shorter supplier chain.

a worst case scenario is

3. The factory set a minimum delivery limit, but they also lower the buying price for the local dealers. The local dealers are going to sell anyway beacause the shorter and quicker delivery. This will give the farmers a lower price.

Offcourse thera are many more ways this can effect our situation, so it's exiting to see what happens.

Any of you have experince from this situation?

Or anyone selling directly to a rubber factory?

Best regards

Sonny

Hi all of you

I need help to understand the rubber pricing.

We have just finished our first tapping seasong here in Isaan, Udon Thani. So we have learned a lot this year.

Today we sold about 600kg kee yang for 53 thb/kg. We don't do any sheets at the moment but I asked for the price on USS the buyer answered 97 thb/kg. When I checked on internet today the average price on http://www.thainr.com/en/index.php?detail=pr-local cup lump was 98 thb/kg for cup lump and about 111 thb for USS.

Where is the error?

We get 53 thb when the average is 98 thb on the market for cup lump, but we would have 97 thb for USS when the market price is 111.

Why we only get 54% for cup lump but 88% for USS?

There must be something I don't understand ?

Please explain for me

Best regards

Sonny

Hi, today it was our first day for rubber sale.

After 12 tappings we had 227kg lump and we get 17500 cash, not much but what a felinig!!!!

I think it's a good reason for a big whiskey today.

Regards

Sonny

REALY NICE VIDEO, THANKS FOR SHARING!!!

When you have time pleas tell us more about the smoking process, I would love yo hear it,

Best regards

Sonny

Hi all Tothemark you are right about Oct. last year we almost hit the 2000 kilos, hope to psaa that this year. Sonny Google collister rubber or youtube my name, have video of making sheet, Bossie as long as you are happy the way you do things that;s all that matters. Now it;s time to have our worker boss drink, see you tomorrow. Jim

Hi to you all, I found this clip on youtube.

Supertab is a new rubber tapping knife developed by dr. wisut in Thailand.

Have any of you tried it?

There seems to be some kind of distans makin the tools work more like a razor than a knife.

And when steel is worn you only change a small piece

Part 1.

Part2.

Regards

Sonny

Hi Jim, very intressting facts!

I understand as time goes by the numbers are playing a smaller part, and you relay on your experince.

But as a newbe the numbers are all I got, I hope I can give some more experince back in the future.

Are you doing your smoking by your self?

If so, how many employes, or should we say manhoures do you need for this?

I have only seen some pctures of houses for smoking.

Pleas tell me more about the process.

In our area the most farmers only sell lump, and mayee some sun dried sheets, but none I have seen take it all the way to RSS.

Best Regards

Sonny

.

Hi all

Know some of you love to number crunch, not my style. To me it all comes down to how much rubber and the price per kilo. Today we sold our first RSS for the season plus the beading and scrap rubber. For those who are really not up to speed on how it works. We opened our trees about 6 weeks ago, and no usable latex was produced for the first 2 weeks, only cup, which we sold. So the numbers are for the last 4 weeks. RSS 1374 kilos plus 71 kilos of beading and scrap rubber. We lost 4 days of tapping due to rain. and there is another 100 plus kilos that have not been smoked yet, in the shed. In my book a good start to the season as the trees output will continue to rise over the coming months.

Government price paid RSS 141.75 Baht a kilo. Beading and scrap 88 Baht a kilo.

Before anyone asks how many trees, I don;t know, never counted how many we are tapping, somewhere over 3000 but less than 4000. for those who like figures on rubber per tree day, month, rai or lunar cycle knock you self out. Jim Correction beading and scrap rubber sold to private buyer.

Sorry, I mixed the 7 and kg.

Yes, it would have been vice to get 7kg latex liquid from each tree, maybee its time to do some pipelines to every tree!

I just didn't understad if your 1 kg for about 7 trees was liquid or lump?

Regards Sonny

Hi, thanks for your aswer.

What area and what trees are you talkin about.

When you say 7kg, are you talkin about liquid or lump?

Thanks again

Sonny

Hi Sonny,

7000 trees is a good amount, I have about the same. You can live sabai-sabai on it for 18 - 30 years depending how soon you started tapping. 7 trees per kg (conservative number).

Ummmm... I wish 7 kgs. per tree!!!!! Please re-read my above reply.

Hi again, thanks for all quick answers.

Sound VERY much with 800 trees in 3 hour, but as my whife always say "I don't understad nothing".

But it's impressive if the manage 4-5 trees / minute.

Today we have 2 skilled an 1 family trainee, they tap all the 2000 trees for 2-3 days and then testing for 1-2 days. Depending on raining or not.

We just started last month and haven't got any rubber to talk about yet, some trees only give a spone or so / taping. But this is normal when you start, everybody say.

Were is your area Bosse, also Isaan or?

Thanks

Sonny

Sorry,I meant to go on and say,that if it were me,I would have two employes,who worked together to cut all the 1400 trees for two days in a row,and then paus on the third day.As I have said before,it is not a hard work,although skill is needed,and it is cool and nice in the night,compared to daytime work.But for some strange reason,people have been used to demand very high payment,compared to the payment for other kinds of work...

Hi, thanks for your aswer.

What area and what trees are you talkin about.

When you say 7kg, are you talkin about liquid or lump?

Thanks again

Sonny

Hi Sonny,

7000 trees is a good amount, I have about the same. You can live sabai-sabai on it for 18 - 30 years depending how soon you started tapping. 7 trees per kg (conservative number).

Hi there all rubber farmers.

We just strated our first tapping season with about 2000 RRIM600 trees, still have 3-4 years until all 7000 are grown.

When you try to ask the locals how much rubber its going to give and so on, we always get the same answers, "hard to tell, it depends - Milo?, Mapenrai?!, Sabai sabai!!".

It must differ a lot depending on where you have your farm, specialy when you see the big trees in the southern Thailand and the smaller one we have in Isaan area.

Is there any of you that are tapping your trees in the Isaan area, our farm is in Udon district.

What are your experince, of your farm?

What is your normal tapping season?

I have read somwhere that the first year of tapping a tree it will give about 60% of the normal coming 30 years, is it true?.

What tapping schedule are you working with?

I have herard mainly 3 types of schedules.

3tap - 1rest day

2tap - 1rest day

And the one that I read somewhere, and I think it sounds good.

Take about 1400 trees, divide theme by 3. That gives about 450 trees for one emplye, and thats what he can tap in one night.

Mon tap section A 450 trees, Tue tap section B, Wed tap section C. Thu section A again, Fri section B again, Sat section C. Sunday Sabai sabai.

What schedule do you use, and how many trees do you need to tap for one 1kg latex liquid?

Or if you prefere rubber lump, how much 1kg lump.

So come on lets talk some experince!

Best regards

Sonny