DaveD

my wife has already stated in a sworn legal document that i have a 50% share of the land in thailand.

i am assuming that our divorce will be recognised in thailand,but to what degree?

there are no children involved, my ex is still living in ireland ,has a new partner and has a child with him.

i have no problem with the divorce  except that she said some pretty unsavoury things about me none of which are  true.

the land in question is rented out to the benefit of my wifes father.

Hi and thanks again for advice.

As the land has been declared as a joint asset,i think the court here will have to make a decision on how the asset will be shared.

My guess is that the courts decision here regardiing the land can not be  binding in thailand even if both parties here accept the courts ruling.im sorry i know im not putting this very well.

Hi and thank you all for your input.

I did sign the waiver in the land office  and i think it was shown that the purchase money was my wifes.

However i have been told by a law office in thailand that because the purchase was subsequent to the marriage then the land becomes an asset to be divided 50/50 regardless of who purchased it.

I am not greedy for the land ,but my wife declared it here in ireland in her statement of means so a decision will have to made here.

I dont know how this will work in thailand.

Hi,i apologise in advance if this query is in the wrong area.

I got married to my thai wife in thailand in the ampher office,a legal marriage.

The marriage was recognised in my country and my wife came to live with me.

All was fine for 5 years.

Have been seperated now for 5 years and getting divorced here in ireland.

Will this divorce be recognised in thailand?

Bought land in thailand in the wifes name ,subsequent to the marriage.

What happens with the land.

Thanks for all advice ,i can enlarge where needed.

Dave, forgot, no problem with the sticks for re-plant, Lickey..

Hi Lickey .and please see post,we intend to harvest that crop around november ,which will be around 17 months.Now ,my wife will begoing back to thailand and the plan is to plant a furthur 13 rai .using stems cut from th present crop.

She wants to try the different spacings of diagonal 1 meter and using 50 cm stems(anyone else read the thai guy who did this ?) then applications of fertilizer.

So? what about using these stems,for replanting? and what about killing ,and preventing future bugs /fungus?

regards

Dave

Hi,Lickey and thank you.Certainly reasuring words.My wife called TTDI in Dankuntote and spoke to the lady we met when we visited.

She said that this bug problem occurs during the dry season only and that at the moment it is widespread in the korat area.Ok,she also said ,that if we want to take cultivars from our existing plants,then we have to soak them in some stuff (forgive me) for 24 hours .This part i dont understand ,im feel .prolonged soaking will destroy the culitar??????? so im looking to be corrected .I done know if it means full immersion or just the tips of the stems.I am aware of khonwans advice regarding innoculation against fungus and a few minutes in a bath is all that is required. Has anyone else experienced this problem before.

Our neighbour ,has just harvested a small plot of cassava, 50 sq wah,he got 7.5 tonnes,i dont have info yet as regards factory.i didnt hear anything yet about any government sub here.if you look in my previous posts you will see how this has worked out here.

Hi Sandyrow, I think i have been the only one to have this problem before with cassava, [see posts 7 & 9 on this pinned topic' ]

The biggest problem, believe it not is ants, these buggers look after the mealy bugs, even hibernate them when new growth is scarce, once new tender leaves appear, the ants carry the bugs to the plants and then live off the excrement [sugary] the mealy bugs give, when 1 plant is near dead, ants will take them to another and so on, The young buding cassava suffers a lot, with little or no growth, once they are over waist high [1mtr] its not such a serious problem, but a problem all the same,

The chemical in the pic is chlorpyrifos,its a nasty smelling chem that will kill all insects and natural predators too, to control the ants, you can use Furidan mini=pellettes, this will kill ants andagain most other insects in contact with it.

Please exercise care if using the above, always spray downwind, if not possible, spray the 6/7 rows to your right, never spray in front of you, and if using furidan, wait for a breeze, through a fist-full in the air and cover the field like this, use as much protective gear as possible, and dont scratch an itch however uncomfortable, try to pass this on to your thai farmer friends, and also what the dillution rate is, that is what it is, No More.

Lickey..

HI Lickey, thanks for the info, I will pass this info on to the family and do my best to see that they take care will using these chemicals. I think small farmers are having a tough enough time of it this year without this added problem. price down to 1.20 at the moment.

hi guys ,our cassava is 11 months old and my wifes father reports what looks to be meally bug infestation,but im not 100% sure .What will happen to the plants at this stage ,and what is the best remedy? what happens if left untreated. can these stems be saved for reuse in a subsequent planting?

regrds

Dave

Hi,Dopey.

give me a bit of background ,allthough it may not seem to make sense.

Your girlfriend is from udon,right ?

she is in singapore ? with who?

You are in farangland?

Have you seen the xrays or spoken directly with the hospital?

Hi,our chanoot concrete markers sit pracically beside the road (within 30cms) The electricity poles also sit exactly on the edge of the road .not back a few meters like you see on bigger roads.It seems that if the road is widened they will be taking some of everyones land.I woudnt worry about a meter ,but they may want about 3 meters !

Hi im not sure if this belongs in this forum,but it is about our farmland.

Today my wife spoke with our neighbour who told her that the or bor tor are planning to upgrade the road that runs past our land.

The road at present is a single lane muck road ,and the upgrade will widen the raod to 8 meters and be chipped .

Our land has chanoot title .

So my question is :How will we be paid for the 3 meters of our land that will be taken for the new road? How is it valued? Who will pay for the new GPS survey and channoot?

My wife has called the poo yai ban ,but he is away for a couple of days .so we cant get any more info.

all advice appreciated

DaveD

Hi ,as an update the big factory near us in sikhiu is owned by Corn Products International.im told today that the max .non-quota price is 1.30 baht/kg.

There is another problem in that someof the truckloads supplying for quota price are queueing so long ,that the cassava becomes unuseable and wont be accepted by the factory!!!!

Hi, we planted 27rai with cassava 1st june last year.Luckilly we got rain the next day after 2 weeks of drought.

We spaced at 80cmsX120cms to allow kubota to go between the rows. Lnd was ploughed twice then ridged .Stems were 10cms planted 10cms deep.we had a small problems getting stems and ended up using two varieties : gan deang(kasertsart)? and huay bong.

First fertilizer application was after 30 days 15-7-18 @ 50kgs/rai.weeding was carried out by hand and kubota as required .second application of fertilizer at 3 months 0-10-30 @50kgs/rai.

In january we were back and my wife dug up plants at various points on the land . the weight of tubers was averaging 5kgs per plant.Maximum, was 7kgs and minimum 3kgs.

It was obvious that the best plants were the gan deang variety.

Some plants have growns over 2 meters high while some are less.,the advisor at TTDI said this was due to different variations in the soil in different parts of the land.

We were also advised to"go fo killo,not starch"

We plan to harvest in november ,which will be 18 months after planting.

I am concerned about the factory pricing system .It seems that the govt ,subsidy price can be got by making a contract with the factory.it is 2baht per killo in sikhiu.

BUT they will only take from each supplier ONE lorry load per day,and you cant send another load until your first has been tipped and that could be in two or three days after queing.Maximum of 170 tonnes per supplier.

However if you accept a non-contact factory price of 1.45 baht per killo ,then you can send in as much as you like ,when you like ,and no queing!!!

My thanks for all the advice i have taken on board from khonwan and the rest of the posters here .ill keep posting as i get more info

Thi sounds crazy,in the khao noi area ,near pakchong,most local have already sold ther land to wealthy thais from bangkok,and now live as tennant on land they formerley owned or manage the lane for the new owners,Little foreign property her compared with absentee bangkok owners

Anyone following these developments on Wall Street?

Dow Index is bellow 8,600 (at time of writing this post), there is savage selloff going on!

Statistics show this is the worst bear market since 1973 and largest 7 day loss since 1987. We all know what happened that and following year. Another interesting info: dow lost 8 trillion dollar of its value in 1 year, how do you possibly comprehend these figures?

....it will affect us all more then you can possibly imagine.They dragging us with them. Whoever thinks this situation won't affect rest of the world is living on other planet. They are largest economy in the world, every country dreams of selling something to them...

Just watch openings in Tokyo, Singapore and Hong Kong this morning - I bet there will be widespread market trading suspensions.

maybe they are not dragging us with them,but more likely creating a situation where we will be pushed into the swamp ahead of them.

The fat cats are allready insulated against any major threat of starvation etc.

But to control the masses ,they(the joe soaps) will have to be pushed to starvation level,then a new initiative can control and help.

Hi guys ,

Cassava harvest will come next year and ive read khonwans sticky about 18 month period ,I see that locals tend to harvest what they need (in terms of cash in th pocket) after 6 months.

How long does it take to get your cassava out of the ground? What methods used ? What amount of labour and trucks available?

Tonnes /rai per day?

I feel at a couple of rai per day some large growers might take weeks to harvest.

I understand that rainy weather is prefered for harvesting in that the ground is softer ,but i also hear that if it is too wet ,the starch content is lower and the factory wil pay a lower price??

Also some factories can only process so much per day and will restrict intake.

I hear also that a factory will refuse to take cassava from smaller growers ,while a favoured big farmer is delivering their harvest?

What about selling to the guys that have the huge concrete areas for drying?

At the factory gate i gather that Mr,thai farmer gets shafted ,stating that his tubers are too dirty/starch content to low?

Sorry for so many questions at one time ,akk replies are welcome and ill chip in where i can.

DD

Hi Dave - yes - some days are bad. Tougher for the woman. However - I remind her that if she was here right now in canada - none of this would have been done in the last 8 months and it is a great foundation to build on and grow. Luckily I live in a small town here and I now live a very quiet life (versus my 8 years in Asia when out all the time).

We had her brother helping at the start - had to "fire" him and now he is back and working great - he added a lot of corn on rented land - he sees the light on the money to be made. She has had to visit the farm a few times and push them. Also - we are building a house in Udon - so the timing was just that she had to be there. Getting very close for a break for her to come here though. In summary - at the end of the day - the feeling of accomplishment will / has outweighed the hardship.

Hi and thanks for your comments .it looks like you have a big oppereatyion going on ,that will need close supervision.my wife has gone back for three weeks to check things out and also to renew her passport ,she has used her phone to email me current pics of the cassava and corn .also she will organise any fertilizer.

i was sad to see the pics of the cattle that now resemble skin and bone.i dont know what to do about them ,they are only getting grass ,any money we send for nuts gets diverted .They were being kept very well up until now.its hard for my wife being the youngest sister as she has to defer in some way to all the others.she is becoming more self reliant ,but its not easy for her to go against years of hard wiring.i miss her very much and wuill be glad when she returns.wish you every success.

Dave

So far so good for my Cassava project. We started for the first time this year. All is running well. I enjoy Khonwan's posts. Spouse is in charge of getting this going - I am in Canada - but I have a very good idea of what is happening from these posts. We have corn and Eucalyptus going as well...

Hi and please forgive me for side tracking .I would make a new thread but i want to ask you.You stated that you are in canada and that you wife is working your farm.At the moment my wife and i are here in ireland .it would be a great help to our plan if she could go back to thailand and stay sometimes to ensure things are being done the way we instruct ,on our land .However i can only state the way i feel.My wife works with me here ,we are together 24 hours each day,she is like a limb to me ,and for her to go ,even for a short time will be a tough time for me.Also my wife feels the same ,but i feel if she can go and take care of things for a short time ,it will make her stonger and give her a bigger sense of responsibility especially in standing up to her family.I say a short time ,yes ,because i feel if you stay apart ,you will grow apart.(look at movie star marriages).we stay together and we are very close.

Sorry if off topic ,and mods feel free to move .However i feel the poster and myself are not the only guys here ,farming from farangland.

Dave

Traction can be increased by adding weight to the frame and/or adding fluid to the tires. The tractor and implements need to be matched on size and HP and this matched to land size. It appears many/dealers people who sell farm machinery in Thailand would not be able to tell you hp requirements for implement size, nor rai/acre coverage per hour, cost to run tractor/hr., trade in loss/hr., etc have no traning, no trained salespeople(same as auto showrooms), no spare parts in stock with up to date tech training and repair by the company. They sell used imported farm machinery due to low overhead, little after sales support (okie warrenty) and sell what they have, and/or is requested with little thought to repeat business. Plan ahead 10 year for a repeat customer, trade in, service/repair during use, and sell the trade in after overhaul/repair as needed to a new customer, WHY. I enjoy talking to family back home who have spent their growing up years on farms, 4 to 5 year in University with ag degree, run numbers, bitch about results (real and proposed) and still feel the need to go back to school every 2 year so they can keep up with what is new and working. They laughed when they came here and looked at the majority of farm operations as they felt they were seeing what they had read and heard about on farms 3 to 4 generations ago.

Yes ,i know it can be frustrating,but certainly .some farming methods are the same as my country was 50 years ago.thats what i like about it.in my country farming has ceased to be a way of life and is now a serious business venture.im hoping to recapture some of the old ways ,including working and bonding with the land.not looking for millions but quality of life

My wife hires the workers and while working in the rice paddies, she works along side of them. My wife is 40 years old and I hate to see her come dragging home covered in mud but she says it's her duty to plant her own rice and if she isn't working with them, the job won't be done properly.

That's the way to go. When you employ people, you have to show them you know the job so they can't fool you. Once you've done that, things get much easier.

It's not easy to be a boss

I tend to agree, the boss can set the pace and the workers will follow.

I've got a lot of employees in Bkk, they're a constant headache but definitely not lazy. Unless my wife organizes things it's a complete mess.

We have a guy look after our land and he does an excellent job. He quotes a job by how many days it'll take and if he finishes early he'll find other things to do, even though we're not there and he is being paid for the job, not by the day. He had 10 rai with his wife, but she got the lot when they divorced. Now he has nothing except a good work ethic from being self employed for 25 yrs.

We pay him B250 a day, I think he's well worth it because of his excellent knowledge. Two months ago the Bkk Chinese-Thai down the road told me I was paying him too much and complained pushing wages up. The other day he told me he'd watched the guy work and I was getting my money's worth.

I think we're lucky to find him.

hi and thank you for your post.

my own experience with employing guys in farngland ,is similar.

if a guy is no good .paying him more money wont make him better .Find a way to let him go>

If you are lucky to find a skillful guy with a sense of reponsibillity,give him responsibillity.it will increase his sense of self worth.

Pay him more ,it wont make him better ,but it might make him stay and a with his increased responsibillities will help him grow into his job.

As far a thai labour goes .my wife and i are thinking about employing a thai couple full time .to give them a place to live ,and expect full time co-operation and loyalty.The returns for them would be enormous if we could find the right people.

Im into solid guys with a wife and family with a concept of future improvement ,but i dont know if it would work.

i guess a lot of you guys have been down this road and i welcome advice.

regards

Dave

Now you could follow some advice and NEVER buy land that is not chanote, NEVER get into farming in the first place unless you have over 1,000 rai, NEVER do anything until you've considered all pros and cons for 5 years or more, NEVER...NEVER...NEVER...

or, you (i.e., your Thai partner) could reasonably safely buy Bor Tor 5 land with a very reasonable expectation of absolutely no problems.

My (wife's) own 200 rai has all started out as Bor Tor 5. It is only now being converted to Sor Por Kor, Sor Tor Gor, and Zone C plots of land. I have never had a problem throughout my 12 years of ownership.

So, pay a fortune for a chanote title...and TRY to recover the costs through your farming efforts...or buy the cheaper land knowing you should recover the cost in a very short period.

Your purchase contract (along with tax receipts) SHALL be accepted as evidence of your ownership at future upgrades.

Indeed, 'ownership' (as in use of the land) and transfer of these titles is a whole lot easier than Sor Por Kor land.

Take all of this as true from someone who has purchased such plots 11 times throughout the early part of the last 12 years and is currently upgrading them.

Rgds

Hi khonwan,

Yes i agree with you .We have bought land from the bank ,with chanoot title .We took our time and it was a few months before we got the land we were looking for .

What surprises me .is that land in the same area ,but with only por bor tor5 ,is selling for the same money.

I really dont get it.I would be prepared to gamble on PBT5 land ,but only if was a lot cheaper.

However in saying that ,it seems a lot of people go this way and never (or not yet) have problems.I regard land with chanoot as a good investment long term ,and the land can be used as collateral in a bank.

Khonwan

DaveD; a hp rating in Thailand is inflated in the best of times. There are several ways to come up with hp on a tractor and I am sure some people on Tv will give their idea of the best. I will not get into a debate on hp vs acres to farm, as Thailand with the cobbled up land parcels will not work in the figures used in eastern (from Thailand) countries. There was a recent post from a TV member who bought a 2nd hand tractor (imported) dealer went thru drive train, engine etc, brought it up to buyer specs and all parties were happy. You mention making hard work of it in your post above, spraying would not make a difference if tractor and disk are matched (size vs hp). A 28 to 34 hp leaves room for guessing but it sounds like the implement is bigger than the tractor was built to handle. Too little HP is the same as too much HP but the former has to be corrected, whereas you can work around the latter. Most of the Fords etc in the 75 hp + range that I have seen in our area (Fang, north) are purchased with the commercial aspect in mind as the owners only have 30 to 50 rai of their own land and that will not justify that large a tractor. The dealers in CM have had a lot of these oversized garden tractors for sell (repo) and they love the new business.

Hi ,and thank you.

The L3408 was new ,i noticed that he had to stop and reverse to try to clear the discs of the grass i mentioned.Would a bigger HP machine ,pulling the same 3 disc plough have been able to carry on?

I see in the kubota brochure for the 95HP ,photos showing the machine pulling 4 disc and 7 disc ploughs.If you see the siam kubota video,it shows a guy doing wheelies in a paddy field on a smaller machine.i guess this is to appeal to some local guys .

Maizefarmer favours using the same money to buy a bigger machine,like a ford 6610(i dont know what a ZF front axel is) depending on requirments.

Im not familiar with disc ploughing ,but i gather it is the norm for tropica/sandy soils.

Dave

Just for a price, US vs Thailand for a John Deere 42 HP new with front end loader (extra), double hydralic system select-o-matic shifting, bomber type tires (extra), no cab, just roll bars. Family just got one for 32,000 usd. Maybe this is a reason for John Deere putting in an appearance in Thailand in the past few years as used price in US may be down.

Hi, a guy ploughed 27 rai for us using a new kubota L3408 pulling a 3 disc plough.It is a small tractor 28-34 HP Price for the 34Hp is 543000 baht.

Watching him plough i thought it was making hard work of it .but that may be because the land was badly overgrown with grass and we had no time to spray it off.

In this area ,Sikhiu ,i see these new kubotas everywhere.i guess they appeal to the farmer with small areas ,allthough im sure the company must have provided a scheme for easy payment terms.My wife called them and they said they required a 10000 baht deposit ,land paper to register a loan .and guarantees from 2 different people not of the same tabien baan.Payback over 5 years.

Any advice on these small tractors is welcome .

I have found out the title of the land, it's Por Bor Tor 5. ( I think that's the right translation ).

On inspection I have been told the trees are healthy and growing well.

3,300,000 Baht

Happy birthday

My little woman says that a chanote would be better but if the bank is willing to loan money on the land, it will be possible to change the paper to a chanote later.

Hi Gary A,

Thanks for the interesting post.Please forgive me for sidetracking a little.As i understand it banks will only lend against full title ie. chanoot tee din ,or maybe nor sor sam.Please correct me if im wrong.I was led to understand that por bor tor 5 ,is just a form of title to squat registered with the poo yai baan and cant be used as collateral.

Another question i have is that the procedure to obtain a loan from a thai bank is very slow ,that is why people who "need money quickly" have to go to loan sharks.My wife reckons it can take 3 months to get loan approval from a bank regardless.

I hope it works out with the rubber plantation, another thing my wife says is that a lot of people who planted trees now find at 6 years they are not producing.She says that it may be due to lack of fertilizer or the wrong type of tree.She heard this from her friend in udon thani.True or not? I dont know.

regards ,

Dave.

Okay - understood - you just didnt have access to the land any earlier. Fair enough. August is not too late - but you run a small risk of low rainfall just when its needed to mature the ears. Still, its a risk most would guess worth taking. And if it all goes pear shaped, it can be cut as cattle forage, or dry season silage.

Hybrid type? - depends where exactly you are (province), soil type, mechanical planter row spacing options - but either way you'd be looking for a pretty resistant type and one that grows in sandy/loam type soils (assuming that that is the soil type because cassava is the primary crop).

Hi maizefarmer and thank you for your reply.

it seems that water is available from a klong about 20 metres away.would it be a big job to rig an irrigation system for this 10 rai ?

what would be required in terms of a suitable pump ,piping etc.This might make it possible to achieve 3 crops per year.

i imagine piping is removed for harvest ,then relaid for the next crop.have you heard of such piping sprinklers being stolen ?

regards

Dave

Nearly all rain-fed maize in my area is planted June/July, with the majority in July (after mungbean harvest). I plant in July.

Rgds

Khonwan

Hi knonwan and thank you.We are not in a position to put in cassava ,so i was thinking of a more short term crop .i guess anything will be a problem now as we head into the dry season,but im open to suggestions

Dave