kickstart

It is the same where I am, a bit south of you, what I have noticed it is the Chow Bann, villagers, that burn the roadsides not the authorities, and if you notice it is done early evening time, all the local government staff would have gone home by then. Also in our area, our sugar mill has been open for 1 month not seen a load of burnt cane go to the mill yet. and last year our local mill received 1.5 million ton of cane, very little was burnt. But ,no such thing as a free lunch, our cane is now cut by machine, secondhand ones imported from Australia and Brazil, a local guy we know has 500 rie of cane ,he showed me his diesel bill, for the most of last season was 100 000 baht ,most of that was fuel for his cane cutter ,he rest was haulage costs for trucks and trailers hauling cane to the mill ,hardly Enviornmental friendly, for the cane cutter, I now see a procession ,cane cutter going down the road ,followed by a truck and trailer ,then a tractor towing a large diesel cart,.............before it would have been the cost a box of matches.

Funny you should open this thread, the wife had the radio today, on and for some reason they played a piece of Enio Morricone's, ,The Good Bad and the Ugley, and I said I must watch that film again, been a while, still love it, then of cause it will have to be, A Fist Full of Doller's ,and a Few Doller's More.

Low? before, for both New year and the Songkran festival, for years the death total was 300, maybe up to,320, looks if this year will beat that. As for the 50 000 personal managing traffic ......before they use to just sit and read the newspaper, now they sit and look at their mobile phones all the time, in-between, gossiping and eating, .....progress.

No, they will get Chine in to-do the building, or like the UK are doing, using the French company EDF, and they will help them run it. Don't panic, it will be ok ,it will be the cost that will be the problem, the new one being built in the UK was budgeted at 26 billion GBP, now it could hit 46 billion GBP, I will let you work that out in baht, with the new Thai submarines expecting to cost 13.5 billion baht, they seem cheap.

What did I do to my bike? my Wave with 148k km on the clock has had a slipping clutch for some time now, so took it into my local shop. The main problem was the centrifugal clutch, same idea as a chainsaw, was well worn, the main clutch basket had a lot of play in it, and the clutch springs were worn, the clutch cork plates were pretty good not that worn. So had it all replaced now ok, one thing the clutch springs are heavier than the old ones. making, for now a stiff gear change, but now a lot better than before. Total cost 3500 baht, most parts were genuine Honda parts, now working well.

I go with the Snowy,not bad for a IPA, I find the Beer lao to sweet ,but is or was Calsberg ,as Calsberg built a plant in Lao a lot of years ago

Re drains, I was writing metaphorically knowing Bangkok, that will be one of the biggest problems, if the F1 calendar say the race will be heled in the rainy season with Bangkok's history of flooding, they will be a lot of work to do, it is a big area to drain ,and where would the water go ?no nearby canals/rivers to take a big deluge of water from a monsoon storm, and the work would not be done overnight ,and at what cost?

At least all the roads in the area will get completely resurfaced, will end up as the best roads in Bangkok.

Do what, you think Mrs Somchie selling her pork at the local weekly market will have a nice DLD sign on her stall .No, I was in Big C last week no sign on the pork stall ,people buying pork think of one thing that is price if one stall has the sign, the next has not and they pork is a few baht cheaper, they will buy they pork from them. That 20 million pigs raised annually on 10 major farms, I thought my Mathes were right after checking that is on 10 major farms equals to 200 000 pigs farm, OK take away the other farms, call it 150 000pigs/farm, been in farming for a lot of years that takes a lot of believing, cannot see it

You put engine oil in the motor it is a 4-stroke engine. As for the pump that has a crank case, you could put the same oil in that, you should have a handbook with both engine and pump. As the old saying goes, All else fails, read the handbook.

You say that, if you spoke any Thai, just ask any Thai about his stance on the drug problem and the way he did away with the drug dealers, they will heartily agree with Mr. Tucksin ,it was not only in the aera s mentioned in the op's but my own area also they were a big decline. ask my wife and many others, best thing he ever did. The problem is now bigger thana before, you can now buy a Yar-Bar tablet now for just a few baht. before it was 100 baht /tablet and thar was 10 -12 years ago. The last president in the Phippens did the same thing a few years ago, gave the police a free rain, that worked, but he also got a lot of criticism.

Most garlic here in Thailand is planted in our autumn, harvested in January /depending on where you are, in my area Lopburi ,we have a big festival near her in February, known for selling garlic and the red shallots onions. often just harvested. One problem with Thailand is that they are very conservative with a big capital C, meaning that like the same things all the time, as I said the white garlic is mostly used, the garlic you want not so much is grown ,finding growers that grows it might not be easy ,your best way would be contract growing ?,finding farmers willing to grow the crop. The big problem would be as you said, is the soil chemistry or lack of, Thai soil is not that fertile, soil organic matter being the main biggest problem but as most garlic is grown on 2-3 rie ? plots that could be overcome, the carrot on the stick, would be saying to the farmers you would pay them a bit over the odds to grow your crop, but you would have to know about growing cost etc. to work a budget out. Have a word with AN's drtreelove, he is our soil expert, and he lives up in Chang Mie.

Good point, in the UK farming is being strangled by tree huggers and Environmentalists trying to save the countryside from big bad farmers, they seem to forget people need to eat ,no farmers equal's no food. As you said other counties are almost the same.

No, the farmer that's rents the land will get the money, as they will be registered with, there local agriculture office, the office that oversees the payout. The wife's daughter and son in law rent they land and have done for 15 years, almost about the same time, they have been getting they 1000 baht/rie. I think you will find nearly all the small rice farmers will be getting they 1000 baht/rie ,word soon spreads. It has come up again getting farmers to grow another crop ,not easy rice fields are designed to keep water in ,grow any anther crop and it will get waterlogged and die. land can be drained ,by using a large subsoiler and tractor to break up the land so water can get away ,but that costs money, and the equipment has to be found ,then as I said in another post the soil fertility has to increase before any other crop can be grown ,if not you will have the same problem again ,and will they be a local market for the newly grown crop ?,as most Thai agriculture crops are sold locally.

That is right, about majority of patients being older, it will be a case they will be a lot more of them, needing more staff to look after them. Watching the nurses working in a hospital ward it will be a very long time before any AI robotics make any one redundant, a robot giving an injection IV, moving patients about, not in our lifetime and what about some interacting between patients and nursing staff, it keeps some patients going. Robots doing the cleaning serving food yes, taking over a lot of nursing jobs cannot see it .

You are not giving a lot away, where in Thailand, are you looking ,garlic likes cool weather ,you are coming in January, by then almost the end of the cool season ,come to mid-February starts to warm up ,garlic will not grow ,unless you are on top of a mountain in the North of Thailand .and most of the harvested crop would have been sold ,or in store waiting to be sold. Most of the Garlic in my area is white garlic, as the wife said they is no red garlic in Thailand, we have purple garlic, you do not mean the red shallots type onions.

Long story short, wife's daughter is in our local provincial hospital, looking at the wards the average age of women must be 60 plus, the nurses are doing a good job. As it is going, those wards are going to get fuller with older people as the demographic's change, and the doctors and nurses, and all the ancillary staff to look after them will be getting less, as it is the ward is 90% full. It is a problem worldwide with no real answer.

This subject of lower rice yields in Thailand use to comes up often over in the farming Forum, the sense of opinion is that the land lack a lot of organic matter, any form of animal manure, needless to say would help, but the problem of mono culture of rice is the problem ,rice is a cereal crop ,it will use up all the soil nutrients. To solve the problem a crop of say Mung beans or Sun Hemp, both legume crops grown to say 60 days then ploughed in, can be done before the main rice planting or after harvest, would help. Why is it not done? cost of seed and planting, then ploughing the crop in, never done it before afraid it will not work ,the government will pay us 1000 baht/rie ,up to 10 rie ,that will do me or been doing this job for X years now not going to change now. Yields will continue to drop Thailand will drop further down the table of rice exporters, just hoping as the OP said the famous Thai Jasmin rice will sort them out which it will, but for how much longer, most of that comes from Issan, where they are most of the above problems.

I would say I am like a lot of AN members ...............What is the White Lotus, if it is a Thai soap, not many people outside LOS will watch it, cannot see it helping Thai tourism. My sister in the UK watched a Thai series on Netflix she said it was ok, but not again.

The odds of any one at7 -11 speaking enough English to give advice about riding motorbikes in Thailand will not be high. Unless it will be one with in shop leaflets? How many farang tourists actually use a 7-11. Note, Wifes granddaughter works at 7 -11, rides a bike most of the time no crash helmet, has no driving license, a good example for the tourists.

Duran, not an easy fruit to grow, look around your area, if they are no Duran orchards then they will not grow, I am in Lopburi province, I have tried Deran 2-3 times just do not grow, and they are non-grown in our area, and as far as I know none is grown in the province That purple bulb you can cut it off it as the tree grows, it does help he tree to produce more fruit, then if you do not cut it off, but some will get cut of, as they do make a nice Tom -Kar- Gie, a Thai soup. When the fruit has been cut off as Dr T said cut it down for a mulch, the plant will grow, but it will not bear any fruit for a second time. Papaya, you can buy the plants cheaply from any market, I get them for 20-30 baht each, go for Kek Dum or Holland verities plant them let them grow, no need to chop them at all, but beware I brought some plants, and one is a male plant now 8 foot tall, it will not produce any fruit. Mangos, again not one of our successful crops, just do not like the hot weather I have tried 2-3 times to grow Ogg-Long, verity from seed they get up to a foot tall then disease sets in, that is it, just go a buy some well grown plants, or look on the net at grafting. My land has flooded which does not help, when planting a tree, I dig a hole 18 inch deep, put some stones in the bottom then some compost, from ort few cattle, then plant the tree remember not to deep, the stones help drainage.

I think you will find thy are sheep, the tropical breed. Look at the heads, and the long tail. PS, Are they on a sheep day return.

It's a small world, we drove past just as the accident happened, she was not trapped under the truck, just laid in front of the back wheel. I thought right, she was very local just going to the 7-11 about another 500 meters up the road, no crash helmet. When I was kid, I used a push bike to go to the local shop. how things have changed.

Ask at a local nursery, or one of those roadside places that sell fruit trees, I have brought a few in the past, not easy to grow, do not like the really hot weather, give them a bit of shade I do not know what verity lemons are here in Thailand, but the fruit are not the nice shiny yellow ones we have, more of a lime color. Lemons in Thai seem to be known as Manow-lemon.

I also make my own ,most ingedent you can sause here in Thailand look at Lazada,recipy from the net.