JungleBiker

Hi Rice555, I'm preparing a budget for growing strawberries in coir here in Laos. I want to work out the cost of nutrients. I contacted WESCO by email and they didn't reply. I found your handy post #303 on page 13 where you shared a photo of an invoice showing prices for micronutrients. I was wondering if you could kindly share the prices of the macronutrients (25kg bags, etc)? And if prices have changed since a year ago, any update on the micro prices would be good to know.  

 

What (if any) chemicals are you using to adjust the pH?

 

I saw a post where you said you bought some bags of coir for 1,200 baht, but how was it priced in terms of baht/bag or baht per what?

 

Many thanks.

JB. 

Many of you may know about Pick-Your-Own or U-Pick strawberries back in the UK and USA, well now is the time to come and pick your own arabica coffee cherries here in Paksong, Laos. You can choose the widespread commercial Catimor variety, or go for the superior original Typica and Java varieties. Take the fresh cherries back home to Thailand and convert them to green beans, and then roasted coffee beans, yourself. Not so difficult. PM me if you're interested. 

There are many types of oyster mushroom. Sounds like you have two of them.

Het Hoo Noo - translates as "mouse ear mushroom" but in English it may be called Jew's ear mushroom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auricularia_auricula-judae It is usually cultivated.

Bit of a joke, given that places like Phimai Historical Park have yet to receive this designation. The Botanic Gardens are 'nice' ... but 'world heritage'??

Well most of the world's rubber comes from SE Asia and the first rubber trees in SE Asia were planted in the gardens. Also where would Thailand's orchid industry without the pioneering work done by the gardens in orchid hybridisation? And so on.

Thanks again KS for the additional info. I accept your point about the bigger tractor. Also good to know that New Holland balers are popular in the UK and are reliable. I will try to find out about availability and spare parts in Thailand.

I just found this video on youtube

showing a New Holland baler in action in the UK. The same poster (thefunkyfarmer) has more videos showing loading and unloading, plus other kinds of balers. They use a bale sled to leave the bales in flat groups of 8 and a flat 8 bale grab to pick them up. So they have just 2 people (one driving the tractor/grab and the other on the trailer.

Some of the comments below the loading video talk about using even less labour and they mention "kick balers". So I just looked up kick balers and see they "kick" the bale out the back into a trailer attached to the baler. One man job. But I think maneuvering such a long "convoy" (tractor + baler + 4-wheel trailer) through small rice paddies would be impractical (not easy to reverse!). Also, not sure yet what happens when those jumbled bales reach the farm (I'm curious to know how are they unloaded and stacked - I need to do some more searching).

JB.

Many thanks Kickstart for your help. The information you've provided is very useful and much appreciated.

Regarding "stationary" balers, there is a post dated 2009 here http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/236486-kubota-dc-60-harvesters/ where the poster said he used a regular (not stationary) baler to bale the straw piles found where people thresh their rice; he had 3 people forking the straw into the baler. I think farmerjo's idea to target the places where combines aren't used is a good idea though such places are probably becoming more and more difficult to find. I read here that combining versus manual harvesting can increase net benefits by 30%: http://www.aensiweb.com/old/rjabs/rjabs/2010/778-784.pdf

If anyone else is interested in the subject of baling, I found the website of a Thai company that makes 2 models of balers: www.siambaler.com It says they also sell the Cicoria balers (www.cicoria.it) and New Holland balers. I haven't got any prices yet.

I also came across self-propelled balers, including some huge 20 ton monsters in the US mainly used for baling alfalfa: http://www.alliedsystems.com/Freeman/sp1592.htm And also some much smaller self-propelled machines from Japan for baling rice straw, including a very small model that you can walk behind! http://www.takakita-net.co.jp (I'm not suggesting these are appropriate for Thailand).

And here http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/8425.pdf is a rice straw marketing guide from California. It has some useful information about the amount of nutrients removed from the field when you take the straw out, plus how it can be used to feed livestock, and other interesting bits of information. Strangely, one of the uses for straw that it doesn't mention is fuel pellets.

Well I still need to find a few more numbers before I can complete a spreadsheet to do some number-crunching, but so far, the numbers look promising.

Hi Gerry,

Thanks for your generous offer. I've sent you a PM asking for your CV.

Hi John,

I have no idea what pelleting machines cost because I'd supply the bales to someone who does ;-) I believe they import their pelleting machines from China.

Actually I'm talking about rice straw, not wheat or barley.

Hi Neversure,

The pellets are for fuel/burning! Climate friendly renewable biomass energy.

Thanks for the info. Since I'm considering baling thousands of rai I'd be interested in 35+hp tractors rather than smaller ones. If 35hp is the smallest, then what would be the biggest tractor you'd use with a 2-m wide baler? I guess going too big just means extra capital cost and extra fuel/running costs but not faster baling? Would a Kubota M5000 be ideal or too big? (I saw that in 2006 Maizefarmer reckoned the M series were Rolls Royce quality tractors... http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/83055-rice-harvesting/ ).

I did find elsewhere on the web some rice straw yields and it seems that it is usually just a bit lower than the paddy yield, so for example if you get say a ton of paddy per rai then you'll get less than a ton of straw (perhaps about 900kg/rai). It also depends on the variety - I think the Jasmine/Hom Mali rice gives more straw than some of the more modern higher-yielding white rice varieties.

Hi Jake,

Thanks for sharing the price you pay. I did find a few other prices when I searched the forum but some of them were a few years old. But 25 - 30 baht/bale seems to be the range unless they're being trucked far away then the price will be higher.

Hi Slapout,

Thanks for sharing your past experiences about pelleting straw. Luckily for me, pelleting will be someone else's business and they already use driers (to get the right moisture levels) and grinders (to get the right particle size), so they appear to be up to speed on those crucial points!

Thanks again everyone. I hope I'll be hearing more from others.

Cheers,

JB.

I'm looking into the feasibility of making straw bales (for the purposes of using them to make pellets).

The straw would be on other people farms, not my own straw.

I've searched the forum but could not find much.

I'd be grateful if anyone can share info about the machinery, logistics and costs of making straw bales.

For example, what is a good combination of tractor and baler (in terms of hp, size, model, etc) and what do they cost?

Dimensions and weight of bales?

(Note: I'm assuming here that the bales will be the small rectangular bales and not the huge round bales but if anyone thinks the latter could be more appropriate I'll be interested to hear).

How much time does it take to bale a rai of straw?

How many tons of straw per rai?

Breakdown of baling costs (labour, fuel, twine, maintenance and servicing, etc)?

Is bailing after during the night practical or not?

For how many weeks/days is the window or season for baling? In other words, for how long could the baler be kept working during a harvest season? I guess it depends on many factors such as will the farmers grow a follow-on crop, how hungry the local cattle are...!?

Do farmers with straw lying on their rice land (i.e. un-baled) sell it and if so at what price?

I'll also be interested to know what are the current prices for bales and the charges for baling services?

Besides making the bales, they need to be moved from the field to another place. When I was a kid, the farmers I helped during the summer holidays had large 4-wheel trailers that were pulled by a tractor - do such trailers exist in Thailand or does everyone use trucks?

Also, the bales would be stacked in neat stacks and then a tractor with a special front-end loader that clamped 2 sides of the stack would lift them up and put them onto the trailer - do such front-end loaders exist here?

How about simple 2-pronged pitch forks used for manually loading individual bales onto trailers or trucks - has anyone seen these around?

Any other info, tips, experiences, warnings, etc, will be very welcome.

Many thanks.

JB.

Well the haul was on its way to Laos and probably the Lao buyer was the guy wanted by the US government with a $1 million bounty on his head: http://lao.voanews.com/content/us-laos-wildlife-conservation-11-3-14/1869123.html

He's being well protected by the Lao government!

Without going through the last 10 pages of this topic (mainly because of my slow internet connection here in southern Laos), can anyone tell me where I might find expanded clay pellets/balls (for hydroponic use) in bulk packs (big sacks at wholesale prices, rather than small plastic bags at retail prices) in Thailand?

Also the link to a Dutch greenhouse supplier in CM provided by rice555 on the first page does not appear to work http://www.dutch-greenery.com/ Who else is selling ready made walk-in greenhouses in Thailand?

Thanks.

JB.

In which month were the photos of the red and white flowering rhododendrons taken?

Thanks.

JB.

When embedding conduit (yellow PVC pipes) in the walls (now rendered and painted) I misjudged how many wires I'd be able to stuff in them. Just getting the 3rd wire in is a struggle. Consequently in most cases I cannot bring 3 wires back up the conduit to link to another socket elsewhere. Therefore I am creating more circuits with fewer sockets per circuit than I originally intended. This means I am going to use up all my circuit breakers. What to do? ...Is it possible to wire more than one circuit to the same breaker (but still limiting the number of sockets/outlets per breaker)? If I have to install another CU can I link the first one to the second one without messing with the 2 big wires coming in from outside and how would I link them? Can I avoid having to buy another main breaker that the big wires connect to? My CU is a Schneider Square D unit. I realise I could buy a bigger CU with more sockets for more breakers but this would mean messing with the 2 big wires which I would rather not do because I don't have a way to switch off the power coming in from outside.

Thanks.

JB.

Whatever it is, I'm pretty sure it isn't feijoa. I'm growing feijoa in Laos (no fruit yet) and it's leaves look very different.

I've read one and a half pages and still haven't seen anything about the Toyota?

Last para at the link provided by OP.

Not sure why you want to plug in the fan? Since you are switching, you can wire direct to the fan wires (cut off the plug). Either way should only need one 2-wire cable to/from the fan and switch.

Well eventually (just a couple of days ago) as suggested by Steve, I did wire the extractor fan directly to a wall switch next to the light switch using a lighting circuit. I opened up the fan and connected the wires directly inside the fan using wire nuts (because there were no screw-kind of terminals inside). I just used two wires (live and neutral) because there were only 2 wires originally coming out of the fan with a 2-pin plug on the end. It's working fine.

So my next question is should I run an earth cable from the switch to the fan and if yes, then where would I attach the earth cable to the fan? Note that the fan is about 3 metres up the wall and it's casing is all plastic. I'm wondering if the earth cable is supposed to "protect" the cables going to an appliance and not just the appliance itself?

Thanks.

JB.

(Sorry if this has been covered before but I couldn't easily find anything by searching.)

When installing 3-pin sockets into the metal boxes embedded in the wall should I also link the earth connector on the back of the socket to the metal box using a short piece of earth cable? (This is what I have seen at a UK DIY website). But my metal boxes have no connectors. I asked a guy at the electrical department of a Global store and he said connect it to one of the 2 screws that fastens the socket unit into metal box. Is this correct/safe practice or not? I am using Siemens Delta Azio sockets and switches.

How about the switch - does that also have to be earthed to the box?

Thanks.

JB.

I mountain bike in the jungle

Another jungle biker! Though these days I ride mainly on the roads.

Not making any conclusions, but where does Sean McAnna fit in all of this? Is anything he said true? If not, why did he do that? 15 minutes of fame seems a long shot, but stranger things have happened.

Good question. Nobody is here to accuse him of anything, but ask him to tell the whole world the truth, the real truth . Everybody wants to hear his story what happened that night. People believe he must know something. But until now no statement from Sean has been made.

If he played a role in the gang rape and/or murder, then I doubt he is going to say anything.

CSI LA reckons the real suspect and the Scottish guy regularly worked as a team to drug and gang rape Western girls but in this case David got in the way:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=768931639834163&set=p.768931639834163&type=1

CSI LA reckons the real suspect and the Scottish guy regularly worked as a team to drug and gang rape Western girls but in this case David got in the way:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=768931639834163&set=p.768931639834163&type=1

Thank you for reply, but this sentence is funny :-) "he didn't realize he should have looked behind him before opening the passenger door", REALLY YOU NEED TO DRIVE TO KNOW THAT, IT'S NOT JUST COMMON SENSE, EVEN IN US ? 555+

I disagree completely with you on this point. Passengers opening car doors on the "curb" side would not expect motorbikes to pass by on that side of the car, unless they had lived in Thailand long enough to be use to Thai traffic flow. I saw this very accident occur right in front of me a few years ago and immediately felt sorry for the falang passenger opening the door because he wasn't aware of how traffic flows in Thailand, yet I knew the Thai would think how stupid he was to do that...that he should have known to look.

Motorbikes DO NOT pass by cars in the US on the curb side of a car...EVER!

Furthermore, whenever I pass by a car that is slowed or stopped in Thailand I always leave enough room in case the door is opened and I'm ALWAYS looking for doors to open...so stupid on the Falang tourist for just barreling through without a care in the world.

I did not read that the door was opened on the curb side. I assumed the driver parked on the "wrong" side of the road and that the passenger door was opened towards the middle of the road.

I'll have an extractor fan high up in the wall - beyond reach, without a ladder. I'm thinking to have a power socket near to the fan so that I can plug the fan into that socket. Then I'd like to bring wires down the wall to another "box" embedded in the wall. In that box I'd like to have a switch so that I can switch the fan on-and-off. Will this be okay or not? I'm concerned that perhaps switches are only intended to be used for lights and not linked to power sockets.

Also, is it okay to have the power cable go into the switch box and then up to the socket for the fan, or should the power cable go directly to the fan socket and then have another cable going from the fan socket to the switch box? If either way is acceptable, I'll go with the first way because it means only one cable going up the wall to the socket.

Thanks.

JB

Thanks Jake, Gerry, KB, Jotham and Canada for the info. And in the cassava thread Somo recently mentioned 300 baht/pass.

That's a fair range of prices - 200 - 700/rai. (and 1,000 for cane planting - that's also handy to know because I am considering planting napier using canes). I guess there is some variation depending on factors such as kind of soil (e.g. sandy versus clayey) and the area to be worked (e.g. larger area is probably cheaper per rai), time of the year (sometimes everybody needs a tractor at the same time), distance from the contractors base to the customer, and so on.

I agree that an initial deep ploughing with 3 discs should be more expensive than the other operations. I think the fertilizer spreading could be the cheapest operation - I think those spreaders (that broadcast the granules) can cover quite a few metres of width so not so many runs up and down the field would be needed. For sowing the Mulato II grass seed, you're right Jotham that it could be broadcast (by hand or machine) rather than drilled in rows, though it would still need a light harrowing to cover the seed slightly - that could be done by dragging a sheet of chain link fencing if not a proper harrow, or it could be done by hand dragging some tree branches over the soil. For the kenaf, I believe drilling is recommended and this also would allow for some mechanical weeding between the rows during the early stages.

To answer Jotham's question - yes it would be for feeding cows but the cows would be at a different location and belong to somebody else.

Thanks again for the numbers; very helpful.

JB.

my first reaction /question what /which crops?? it will vary greatly

I didn't think it would vary too much and I doubt many members have experience of the specific crops I am interested in (e.g. Mulato II grass); but if I could get prices for tractor work on crops such as corn, sunflowers and soybeans perhaps the numbers wouldn't be too far off. I'm not talking about the costs of the inputs like seeds and fertilisers but just the costs of having the contracted tractor run up and down the field with various implements behind.

Can any of you kindly share current prices for hiring contractors (with tractors and equipment) to carry out field operations like ploughing, tilling, seed drilling and fertiliser application? Plus some indications of how many hours per rai to do these jobs?

Many thanks.

JB.