catwho

The gate price at corn products thai.was a month ago 4.80,then 2 weeks ago droped to 3.60. 1 week ago 3.30. now 2.95, as all the farmers bring in their harvest either on contract or so they can plant corn while still wet season.

has any other areas noticed price changes,last year prices were slowly going up from a low of 1.30 to when my bra inlaw sold his at 2.o5 in january and going up till now,seems like the same as ozzie petrol prices petrol goes up fridays and long weekends.hard to figure last year last year slowly up this year down quickly,its a big punt when you take your decide to harvest.

cat

I checked the cassava up the road from me that had the wasp put on them about 3 weeks ago, i looked at the leaves which were still clusted from were the mealy bug was,when i broke it open small insects run out of it,they looked dark the same as the wasp i saw put on them weeks ago,the plant itself [stem and leaves] had grown 30/40% more, which between the rain and the wasp,the cassava had done well,where before it was stunted.

A very good point about the insecticides,someone will have to do a lot of weeding around here[by hand].

cat.

Thanks for that update. I see you are in Sikhi, Korat. If this is the same as SIKHIU (on my map), you are very close to the release site, which is at the Thai Tapioca Development Institute (TTDI) at Huay Bong. (The TTDI has led the breeding program.) You are very fortunately placed.

Yes, the wasp has a big effect. Typically you see fresh green tips and lots of growth, and long spaces between internodes.

If you look lower down the main stem you'll see the gnarling and deformation from the old mealybug infestation - & very short spaces between internodes (stunting typical of the mealybug).

Did the insect you see fly as well as walk/run? The wasp does both - but mostly flies.

Yeh its sikhui and as mentioned before the ute i saw had TTDI on the side of it, taking GPS and notes on everything.

when i broke the plant opened they just ran,asbove iswhat has happened and spread to other fields.

just on the dide the price of cassava has droped to 3.90bt from 4.90 whitin 2 weeks, anyone have an answer for this.

cat

I checked the cassava up the road from me that had the wasp put on them about 3 weeks ago, i looked at the leaves which were still clusted from were the mealy bug was,when i broke it open small insects run out of it,they looked dark the same as the wasp i saw put on them weeks ago,the plant itself [stem and leaves] had grown 30/40% more, which between the rain and the wasp,the cassava had done well,where before it was stunted.

A very good point about the insecticides,someone will have to do a lot of weeding around here[by hand].

cat.

Thanks for the link.

Hopefully by the time the rains finish there will be plenty of wasps around to kill of the expected revival in mealy bug infestation.

By the way the price of cassava hit 4.00 Baht/kilo in Chayapoum recently.

Any ideas on the outlook for next year. Up to 5.00 Baht or back to around 3.00 Baht.

My bet is 4.00 + but then I,m an optomist

[/quote

I would have to agree, but hopes it dose stay up there,here in shikui its 4.15, with the drought and a lot of farmers around here are trying there luck ,time, and money to try for quick turnover of veggies or chille, and now the planting of corn,where as before most farm here only did sugar cane ,cassava,corn,i'd say the cassava average, for thailand will be down,along with the mealy bug probs.

i think we have at least 2 good seasons of good cassava prices,till the thai farmers do the usual thing and get on the ban wagon and have over supply.

cat

It would be so nice if some other climbing gyms opened up again. I researched the gyms here before moving to Thailand 3 years ago, and while there was a nice bouldering gym near Saphan Thaksin BTS for a while, they shut down really quickly. If I lived in the east end of town I'd probably love the place on Sukhumwit, (I've never been, but heard many good things), or I'd even play at Big-C, (although the last time I went, their safety standards seemed a bit lacking in my opinion), but I live on the other side of the river in Pinklao.

Everything near here closed a while ago, so while I had grand plans of joining the community and doing lots of climbing here, (I brought all my trad and sport gear, I have quite a bit), I haven't touched rock for the better part of 3 years. The tone and muscle I had when I came to Thailand is gone, but I'd still love to have somewhere close to start out again at. I know I could take my lazy ass out of town, but that would still involve buses, as I refuse to buy a car while I live in BKK. I also wouldn't trust myself on the live end of a rope right now, so I'd be stuck top-roping.

I even brought some holds to make a hang board with, but it's much more difficult to find good plywood here, and somewhere to set it up. If anyone has any ideas, or more info, I'd love to hear it!

Here is the old SimonFoley.com site, but I don't think you can post:

http://simonfoley.com/forum/viewforum.php?...1664eac8308030e

HI 007,W where did you buy the holds here in thailand as i would like to buy some to make my own bouldering wall for me and the kids, i live nesr korat, but will go anywhere to but them,[bkk].

thanks

cat

While doing my usual tour of the farms i came across a ute with TTDI6 on it,they were using GPS and note book all plastic jars were numbered and dated ,they were putting a very small insect 1/4 the size of a flee,at random on to the contaminated cassava,[MEALY BUG?] which had white small balls on it and in a gather , when i asked with very litle thai,i know they said something like benie, that they were putting on the cassava.

what is the size of the lazer wasp they are suppose to be releasing.

Or is this for something esle,a few farms around have the same problem.

lucky for me at the moment i am OK.

does anyone have an idea what they are, tried to ask if from gov, but no understand.

cat

No one has mentioned it lately, but it is up to 3.60 at corn products thailand, the others have it at around 3.10

and a lot of competion around here, so they must need their quota,

only a year ago i got 1.55, thats life.

cat

Yes you have to have the house and land book and shed built, before they will put the meter in, not sure which was done first book or shed.we had a local do the work for us, all the electricty people did was connect the meter,

for our 10rai of veggies and they send the bill to us 3/4 of a k away,as they know its our land.

catwho

Try building a small brick shed,for the wires to run off the main rd, or off rd,and use as your sourse, we had to do that before they would come and connect and meter it, for our electric pump, for our land,around 4000bt plus cable fittings,etc, get the wife to arrange,

our shed is only 3 mts by 2mts for storage.

good luck

cat

9yr old and 2 yr and 9 mts, love the farm like dad

I have this year started using Furadan 3G on all my cassava fields at planting. 15kg bag costs me B550. The bag recommends application of 5kg/rai in the case of cassava, which works out at B183/rai. We currently follow our supplier’s advice, applying 3kg/rai, costing B110/rai.

Rgds

Khonwan

Thanks khonwan,soidog,i now have the 15k bag, is it too late to put in the ground?and if not, should i wait for rain, before putting it in with the new sticks?and how many liters of water to one kilo furandan.and would i have to spray whole field?

Sorry to ask so many Q,but when i try with the mrs she's either TOO busy,or i get carnt explain in english.

And khonwan that would add another fairly big amount to your overall outlay,another reason to leave the cassava in longer.

THANKS again boys.

cat

Hi khonwan, and others,we planted 5 rai of cassava 5 weeks ago, after some rain we ferilized and weeded,i noticed a lot of sticks with no leaves yet,..thought it was because of no rain.... while others had sprouted well,when i pulled them out little white termites eating the stem from the ground to the bottom of the stem, i have lost about 1/4 of the field .

the mrs did soak them in some poison before planting.dont know what,Has anyone had this probelm,

i will pullout rotten stems and burn them but how do i protect the new stems i replant,

i asked the mrs how old were the stems [3/4 weeks].

One other thing has anyone had a village meeting [as we did ] to buy a new fertilizer ,plain white bags, with a VERY fine white powdery substance,the mrs brought 10 bags at 350bt each,bagsweighed about 50ks and had to move around. was told it was goverment made fertilizer,

when delivered they had name tags and back braces, the mrs asked where was it from they said chonburi.

she was also told to spread it all over the ground and plants,8 bags this way only did 5 rai,

i did crack when she put on the plant as its not the norm, but after one week ,only the termite stems are dead.

thanks

cat

I have had check ups every year almost in oz for 30 yrs,always having frozen or cut .

this yr january on my visit he cut 2 becells one of which one was early melanoma , which i found out as i was at airport coming back to thai,i decided to get cut in thailand,when i asked my doc in OZ what he thought of laser treatment,he said with laser you can not get a true biopsy result,i left it at that,i had one laser done in B pattaya H,and and some spots done 5000bt did not want to go back to BPH,

i had it cut out in bkk barumagrad hospital ,but not by demotoligist, for as i found out they dont cut as they do in OZ or maybe elsewhere, they are into laser only, [DERMOS] BOTOX ETC,i had to get a general surgeon to cut after working out my pathology report with him.

That was in FEB,all seems good now,with their path test showing all good.

I go to phuket for a surf each year so i will call in and get some frozen off.

as i live in thailand and its alot cheaper here.

cat

U can kill a lot of pests with nicotine / tobacco but it is not a very safe organic control. See if u can find the LD/50 of nicotine /tobacco and u will not touch it as a pesticide .

the wife mixed tobbaco, coconut cream,coffee,and sea,pipi shells,and sprayed ot on the parsley and kale last night,

so i will see how it goes ,dont know why the pipi crushed shells, its the goverment methord they taught her at siminar.

cat

we sold ours 30bt kilo at markets, thats was 6 weeks ago, but to buy bulbs to grow 60 1 kilo, very dry now so probaly up.

cat

For those interested i goggled organic pest control and came up with no dig garden ,some very good ideas and i see tobacco came into the one of the things that helps control, refering to cassava thread,

i have a leaf miner prob and was checking on how to get rid of them.

cat

The wife lastweek had to go korat for some goverment thing about how to look after crops and what to advise farmers on fertilizer, as we have had our little farming shop now 6 months,

we went into pak chong yesterday to buy tobacco, coconot oil,cream,and coffee which we did not get, she said not your normal instant coffee,they recomended this for something else, or maybe mealy bug,i did not ask too much about it till i saw this post,

and all the organic things i look up o the net always recomend the dish wash sol, for many bugs.

So the gov is in there trying which is good.

cat

My wife bought one rai of standing sugar cane to plant eight rai. She paid 12,000 baht for it. She and her crew cut it themselves. The only one she paid for labor was her nephew. He has no other job so she pays him for taking care of many things. Cutting brush, weeds and pumping water is nearly a full time job. She has seven other women who help each other on their farms so there is very little labor paid for. It's a barter system around here. Judging how long it took them, I would guess the labor, if paid, would be about 2,000 baht per rai just for the planting. That one rai of cuttings planted about 9 rai total.

I think she used a bag of fertilizer per rai with more needed when the cane is about knee high. She also must find someone later on to spray for weeds. I don't want her doing that herself. I have no idea what that will cost.

They pumped the pond dry for the initial soaking and had to pump water from a government pond into her pond for the next irrigation. The government pond is about 300 meters away.

She plans to get 3 or 4 years from this planting. The 4th year is a little iffy. Depends how well it comes up and the population of the plants.

THANKS FOR THE INFO GARY.

CAT

She had to buy a rai of standing sugar cane to plant her eight rai. She had some cane left over so she had a small plot on the other farm available. It was grown up in VERY high weeds. She hired another kid to plow that up. She gave him two big bottles of beer, a bottle of that energy drink and one hundred baht. I gave her hel_l and told her that the next time she sees him to give him another couple hundred baht. He had to take out a couple of stumps and two small trees. his fuel probably cost him a hundred baht. She told me he wanted to do it because he was just starting out and needed the practice.

Hi Gary,this year we were going to start growing sugar cane, on 5 rai we have , the wife was quoted 14000, for 1 rai to cover the 5 rai,they then wanted 18000bt for a rai,seems like 1 rai of cane would replant at least 8 to 10 rai,from your report.

what did your mrs pay for the rai for replanting? just for future referance as over the future yrs i would like to buy land each yr

[10yrs the plan] and maybe have 100 rai over the next 10 yrs of on sugar cane, to have a consistent income for the kids.

i know the fist out lay is the biggest , in OZ they change each 4 yrs the oringinal crop here the mrs says 6 yrs . can you or anyone give any insight on this

thanks

cat

just curious .whats used to put the water in and take it out of the tyres

gee MF do you ever sleep,you must look up everything and never stop looking,i have noticed brian 1314 has not got back to TV yet, rockmelons sound good but that setuo too xzz for me but i woild like to know where i could get some seeds for a bit of organic testing.

ta cat

we brought for 13 bt hom mali shkui area

no one mentioned Bamboo bar next to subway at the entrance to walking st,they play good old songs,but then again many of the blokes are too, but i have always had a good time there,when in the mood.and if you r lucky u may see a freelancer or 2

I know the area quite well.........

Well, if theres a bore hole on land next to yours - that answers the question: now you have to find out how deep it is and how much it produces - and using that info, along with how much water you need make a decision on how deep to drill yours and what diameter to make it.

You don't want to run sprinklers drirectly from the borehole - thats cost money through all the energy needed, and the depth of hole will have to be to keep up with the pressure/flow rate required to get the sprinklers working. You defienatly want to pump it into a dam first - for storage, and then from the dam into sprinklers when needed. The problem you have with your dam is that it leaks - so some of the water you spend money on pumping out the ground is going back into the ground before you can use it!

I think it makes some sense to repair the dam first I think!

By the way - have any idea what sort of volumes of water you are going to want to be irrigating each day with - this is going to determine your energy needs and borehole required depth - but you need to find out how much the old dear next to you guys can get from her borehole each day,before she has to stop pumping to allow it time to re-saturate - or maybe she doesn;t have to stop, if she keeps the pump rate below x amount, maybe she can just pump and pump and pump........

Pumping - pump with ac electrictity if you can: it's about 1/3rd cheaper than using diesel (that maybe okay for the borehole, but when it comes to driving sprinklers, few domestic supplies have suficient current avaliable to power a large enough pump, which means diesel - and if its anything more than a couple rai, then you'll have to use diesel I would think).

Hi MF, the old lady dose not ever use the borehole ,and besides it.s opp my 10 rai that must have an underground spring, cause when it enptied it filled up byitself in a week,and it is omly a small dam but keeped the water for 8 rai going for a 2 months,

as mentioned i need it for the 6 rai and for all the reasons you laid out, the 6 rai and my house is 600 to 800 mts away from the 10 rai through other peoples land ,and i was thinking of putting sweet corn on it,i googled up on tt .and a retired gov/agriculture guy [friend ]gave the mrs the thai book on sweet corn.

the dam is a worry and the search i did on that was sometime's you can never find the leak ,its emty now, the options i see are plastic,clay,concrete, and the funny thing is one dam fills up by itself the oyher leaks.

thanks for your advice .

cat

Are you high up by the prison (or right hand side of the motorway) or low down in valley on the left on the left hand side of the motorway?

The granite layer passes just above the waterline of the resevouir.

Hi MF,I am 22 ks from motorway and 15 ks pass the prison,we are in the valley on the top of a slight hill,our 10 rai about 600mts away has a dam on it and refills itself, but dam next to ours dose not,the [wife wants to make that one bigger but i am scared they might stuff up the self refill].

i dug a dam behind our house on the 6 rai mentioned [but it leaks] the macro did hit big rocks [browny grey] at 2 1/2 mts where i stoped him,the only bore hole around my little village is opp our 10 rai ,done by the gov,for a lady, so carnt get much info, everyone here has enlarged their dams, with help from the phue ban,farmers around here hav gone mad on growing parsley,etc which 2 months ago were getting good money , but now all the crops are in and as usualy happens the prices drop big time.

the plan is to get the bore hole in for our 6 rai run the sprinklers and pump by electicty, and do the labour close to home ,,,ourselves, to keep costs down.

the 10 rai i will plant cassava again to keeps labour costs down weeding, watering [petrol,desil].

i have learnt alot this last 4 months.

MF i thought i put this in the borehole thread, but stuffed up . and i am amazed you know the area .

thanks for any imput.

cat