douglasspade

Accept the things you can not change.

Some time ago when mobile phones started running browsers there was a big problem with how to fit a web page into a small screen as it was too large and designed specifically for desktop browsers of the time.

I remember Opera mobile running on Java2 had a zoom function where you could zoom the page in percentages to your required size and then scroll around it. That was around 2005, but I believe they were the first to have solved the problem.

Most sites has a mobile version and a desktop version. As example 'Thaivisa.com' automatically load the mobile version if using Android on a mobile device. The mobile versions are extremely limited in features.

By switching to the desktop version you can zoom with your two fingers and scroll around the page with a single finger, also have the full feature set in text and font sizes.

To switch to desktop mode you need to pop the drop menu of your browser and select it. Firefox has a slider "desktop site", Chrome a checkbox "desktop site", and the Android browser as a click "Request Desktop site"

Just a reminder that a page in desktop mode may load slower and takes much more data, you will also be less secure. And switching back will reaload the page and there will be a loss of data on some sites.

Hope that can help.

I have a Honda for 3 years now. It is the cable driven one, it has more freedom to maneuver but weighs a bit more. It is easy to service and repair with a limited amount of tools necessary.

Cost me 8500 Baht then, Dono what they cost now. Ensure you do not buy fake.

9 hours ago, DrJack54 said:

Thai officials can be very different in different districts

We have a district "man" that decided I do not have enough grounds to get a yellow book. With everyone at the district shaking because the "man" is as close friend of a local specific minister.

Immigration was at a loss for words expecting me to have a copy of my yellow book on my next NON O visa, and urged us to take it further.

Made several complaints to my provincial office and the Bangkok office in writing but did not help. I went to the district office 4 times with me being shot down. A recorded conversation (my wife went undercover with her phone) broke the ice. I was begged to come in to do the documentation and got that book and the "pinkie" after six month of BS.

41 minutes ago, faraday said:

Take it back, the discrepancies come out of their wages.

That's why 7/11 are always looking for employees!

3 hours ago, Grumpy John said:

Could you upload a pix of the ones you have?

Originally I had Continental 4.00-10's. These are he new 5.00-10 SIAMES AG-613's and fit well on the rims.

The thing was to find a tire to fit the rim and not interfere with the 4x4 ratio. My ratio is 1:50 and it runs currently lagging as new tires are little over diameter size. It is still in spec though, and I feel steering is better.

33 minutes ago, kickstart said:

Have you thought of growing a grass legume ,higher protein than Ruize grass ,likeStylo  Hamata

or Centrosema.or grow Stylo with Ruize.

For seed try TV's Michael Hare ,or your local DLD office ,Department of Livestock Development, Gom-Pasue-Sat.in Thai .

I will need to research it fully. Performance during the dry season in the rice paddy in Isaan without irrigation is the biggest hurdle. And my paddy material also does not help. Also some cattle are slightly picky what they eat, in fact some of our cows do not eat freshly cut rice leaves, they pull it on the floor for fodder and sleep on it. It has to be dry baled before they eat.

2 hours ago, farmerjo said:

Bloody hard to kill.

Indeed. You have to remove the whole damn root system. So far tilled before the rice season they tend to compost very well without growing in the paddies. I might have misjudged the Ruzi as a suitable single cover crop ass well.

2 hours ago, farmerjo said:

not sure what variety

According to the clever internet there are many species of it with 40 million hectares growing naturally in Brazil.

2 hours ago, IsaanAussie said:

other Indian tractor companies

Sonalika is an Indian multinational company headquartered in Hoshiarpur, India. I see Yanmar has their 'Solis' range on the floor. Parts and continuation of the brand is my worry there.

Mahindra looks like a solid tractor. I don't think they are in Thailand. I owned a Mahindra pickup's in my home country and although they ride like a ox wagons, they are extremely reliable and old school easy to fix.

YTO is also in Thailand, will look into them.

1 hour ago, farmerjo said:

Those paddy tires wear out quickly when put to work.

I changed my Kubota B5001 front tires recently. I now run a wider general AG tire, the brand is called 'SIAMES'. They do feel a bit soft though. Wonder what tires are the top brand for tractors. Deestone?

1 hour ago, farmerjo said:

Interested in your ruzi picture,looks more like a guinea grass.

Local bought Ruzi grass grows about 1.5m leaf length. The 'hybrid' I get grows not more than 0.8m. (it is also cheaper) Ruzi is for direct grazing while Guinea and Napier is feed grass. Check out https://www.feedipedia.org is worth a bookmark!

On 9/2/2020 at 2:47 PM, OOTAI said:

So about 15 years ago we bought a "Euro 55DI" and it did a good job for several years. 

I have found a link to a Thailand site you posted in 2010 http://www.eurotrac.co.th/ Here's a pic on their site, she looks pretty mean with those rice paddy tires on.

37 minutes ago, tlandtday said:

As I mentioned earlier why you necessarilly think you need a bigger bike here is beyond me.

Spot on that.

I have a 2016 Scoopy Club after riding big bikes in my home country for 20 years, This country is not made for big bikes period. All drivers are way too absent minded to consider you. If you gonna ride 50 km/h with the scooters, by all means get your big bike. But if you gonna ride with the vehicles or faster, you will dead soon.

You can take my 10 cents any way you like it.

Looks like this kids gonna have a pee there and mommy is filming it. Imagine the headline with that picture in the Papers tomorrow.

2 hours ago, rooster59 said:

with huge rally

2 hours ago, rooster59 said:

Some 50 police officers

Not seeing the actual numbers here if only 50 uniforms were send to identify the next thee finger salute boys to send to prison.

Let's abolish the whole race war and star Jason Statham as the Black Panther.

And star Will Smith as the new Batman.

Mix it up a bit.

17 hours ago, Dumbastheycome said:

From reading through the  above I am of the opinion that given the intensity of your farming that buying a tractor would be a  no brainer !

Indeed the main reason for this thread. On the border of the Buriram-Surin Chi river, rain is looking grim this year and I might lean to insurance to pay out. So I might only purchase a tractor later in next year.

I will also skip the cover crop and pasture this coming year as soil moisture will not allow it, and just cut and manually bale the rice (and grasses) as is in the paddy as we have 3 months of cool weather to get that done.

I am not religious, but I have found myself in the middle of the night talking rain strategies to the starry night skies.

On 9/2/2020 at 2:47 PM, OOTAI said:

So about 15 years ago we bought a "Euro 55DI" and it did a good job for several years.

Not familiar with this tractor brand. Are they still available in TH? Parts and specs?

6 hours ago, kickstart said:

You grow  Black Beans , around here seed not easy to find ,like Sun Hemp

I cultivate my own seeds as well as a percentage of my chicken/duck feed per year on a 1.2 Rai piece of land behind our village using a my kubota b5001. I am able to rotate the 3 fields 4 times a year. Currently on my final rotation for the year with black and green beans, and Sun Hemp growing.

Here is the 250sqm of black beans that so far yield the 2 rice bags of seed needed for the cover crop and some to spare. The seed was 3 tins bought from my local farm store for 100 Baht a tin.

Here I'm checking the first Sunn Hemp flowers developing on 650 sqm. 1 sqm yield me average 0.15 kg of dry seed on the last crop. I seed thick at 4kg per Rai. The mid trunks we dry and tie as bales for the cows, the base 150mm with the roots dry on land and becomes cover foliage.

5 hours ago, kickstart said:

what grass seed do you use Ruize

Yes it the 'Ruzi' cultivar. My leaves are not as broad and long as the African Ruzi. I buy it from a Chinese guy who ships them from Laos. He is cheaper than my local farm shop.

We rotate our cattle pasture every 3 to 4 weeks as soon as the the grass (Ruzi) leaves get max 400mm long, the reason is the cattle tend to grab he leaves together and pull the stems from the root shoots when grazing and a new shoot has to grow a month before a new shoot stem and leaf appears. The grass grows well with other natural Thai grasses and weeds in the paddy. We sow the grass sparingly as it is still expensive and it does grow sparsely on our paddy +/-0.7m to 1m apart with no irrigation needed if it is planted in February. They do grow slower from April but by then still outgrow all other natural grasses on the paddy.

Here is a pic of some growing in my back yard now, seeded accidentally when cleaning the ATV trailer this year after seeding the paddy.

5 hours ago, kickstart said:

about improving fertility and organic matter of rice fields ,seems you are doing it and succeeding

Well not just yet. I need another 3 years as I only sampled my material last year I need to see the effects over some time. I feel it is the right thing to do, if I can only cut cost down more.

5 hours ago, kickstart said:

would it be cost effective increase the fertilizer usage and get a better crop yield

No, I believe the opposite. They (my fellow farmers) keep throwing more fertilizer thinking that they get much higher crop yields. Fertilizer cost a lot of money and damages the soil and the environment. Herding cattle (produces manure) does not restore the soil in the dry months, especially if it is not tilled in to decompose to enrich the soil.

Fertilizing is just one of the elements needed in producing a good/larger crop yield, but in Thailand it seems to me is the 'only' element.

Here is something outdated but still relative:

Source: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Growth-of-Fertilizer-Utilisation-in-comparison-with-Growth-of-Rice-and-Maize-Yields-from_fig1_228496676

In short Thailand is using massive amounts of fertilizer for a minimum increase in crop yields.

But rather do not believe me,I am just on my 3rd year farming, learning as I go along.

I will look into mung bean nutrients if it could be a viable rotational cover crop. Ground nuts I tried before and failed, my material have "root knot nematodes" but that was on the small farm. I have never seen them planted in Paddies though.

On 9/2/2020 at 2:47 PM, OOTAI said:

"plow and rake" plow I understand but rake?

"mulch it after I mist it" I don't know what you are doing here.

'machine rental to get rice planted" I am not sure how you are doing this planting as around here the seed is just casted out using a "blower"

"just to get a cover crop on" I don't understand this?

"re-establish the soil to support pasture" not sure what you are describing here.

My apologies for the translation, I guess in every country there is a different way to say something similar in English.

"plow and rake"

A rake attached to the rear of the disc tiller to rake the material evenly. It assists with the leveling of our area's clay and silt based material. This give the tractor with rotary tiller a more even work level, it prevents the tractor to run the furrows. I think this step is very overlooked in Thailand, if your land is disc tilled with furrows and windrows remaining, the rotary tiller hides that, but after the first rains you tend to see washed off rice in ow spots and high spots with no rice growing at all.

"mulch it after I mist it"

We rotary till after we have 'casted' the rice with a blower machine. This was my first year using the blower. It is more work than just throwing by hand.

"machine rental to get rice planted"

I pay over 30000 Baht on tractor rental to get the our rice paddy planted. That is plow, disc tilling (raking) and rotary tilling.

"just to get a cover crop on" 

After rice harvest and baling (baling only happens partially), we throw long black bean beans (seeds) on our land and run a disc tiller very shallowly through. Getting a tractor willing to do a few days of difficult (careful and responsible) work for a relative price is a major struggle. We can not seed in just one go, on some areas we disc till 2 times to get rid of the layer straw and muck.

"re-establish the soil to support pasture"

After about 40 days we disc till the bean plants in to the ground. Grass seed is thrown by hand immediately after. From April to June my land compared to others looks very good with excess grass cut weekly and baled manually in a tote, or to trade off to family for rice straw bales.

Grass seeding need to complete before mid February, else the grass will not grow as it gets too hot and dry, the cattle need at least 5 months of relatively good pasture. The bean cover crop need to happen as soon as we can pull a disc tiller through.

We have done the beans and grass for 2 years now. Honestly we struggle without our own tractor, and I have made some rookie mistakes.

We have reduced fertilizer drastically with absolutely no change in rice tonnage. I believe the cover crop and the grass tilled into the soil is will be improving my soil after in the next 3 years.

Next year we might swap the bean cover crop with Sunn Hemp. If we can get in our land sooner dependent on the shifting monsoon timetable as the hemp needs 50 to 60 days before it can be worked in.

I hope this clears things up a little.