jandtaa

Hi Loong

Here's the relevant thread from Drtreelove link

I got my Boric Acid from an old fashioned type pharmacy in Chiang Rai 20 baht per 100 gramme. If you still can't find any Pm me and I'll pop some in the post for you.

cheers for now J

Hi Loong

yeah there is a recommended amount of manure to be added to your compost heap, if there is no bedding it makes it simpler. What you are looking for is a carbon to nitrogen ratio ( carbon being straw, rice husks etc and nitrogen being supplied by manure, green plants, freshly cut weeds etc..) of about 30:1 but I've found it to be a bit more of an art than an exact science.

You should really try the boric acid ant killer that dr treelove has been promoting on the general farming forum ( good on you fella ). I've been using it for a couple of years now and it really is the mutts nuts !! It is carried back by the workers and destroys the nest, recently I've been using it under my newly planted fruit trees where I was seeing some damage from aphids on a couple of specimens. Kills off the ant colony in 3-4 days and then the ladybirds etc move in and the aphids are no longer a problem !!

Glad you're enjoying life !! I just wish I could get all the hard graft out of the way and concentrate on growing but hey no pain no gain as they say .

Cheers for now J

Hi Loong

Good to hear you're still beavering away on your plot !!

Yeah have to agree from what I've observed since I've been back that the rainy season didn't yield too much rain. regarding raising seedlings and the tropical equivalent of a greenhouse I reckon a shade house is the way to go, euca or bamboo framework with shade netting ( not really sure whether the 80 percent I've used is too strong but I want to use it for growing in the hot season. I do have a light meter for the old camera so I guess I can measure the lumens with this ) I'd be interested to know what Soidog 2 uses for his toms etc.. I also reckon that you need to consider airflow through the structure looking to prevailing winds rather than a fan. I'll try and post some pics of what I've cobbled together for about 2000 baht in the next couple of days!

Regarding the manure I am guessing that the pen manure has a percentage of rice husks, sawdust etc.. as it also doubles as bedding ( I know the stuff I bought has )

so this will effect the C:N ratio of your compost, it's also possible that that the pen manure is aged, around here the cattle are kept under cover through the rainy season and the bedding is shovelled into a holding area every so often where it goes through its "hot" phase of composting before being dried, bagged and sold on. I managed to get mine still moist and still hot after a bit of persuasion and the offer to shovel it myself ( in the end the uncle and his wife shovelled whilst I loaded the truck ).

Yeah young Ton still comes out to the plot and helps out and in the recent school holidays brought a whole gang of mates with him !! Guess they were just bored with setting off fire crackers, flying kites etc.. but they were a godsend in digging the planting holes for the fruit trees. I just got them working in shifts swinging the Thai hoe and scooping out the loose soil and as boys will be boys they all wanted to prove they were stronger than the next !! I encouraged this competitiveness ( I know exploiting forced child labour ) and all were rewarded with a daily bowl of noodles and plenty of soft drinks. I also had a daily bonus for the kid who had shifted the most soil of 20 baht (funnily enough it was a different kid each day despite their protestations ). Ton usually spends 5 minutes with me on his way to school to inspect progress and usually chides me for not working fast enough (he's so keen to start sowing up) and comes out to help at weekends with the watering ,compost making and any other chores.

As an aside I've just been round to the ricemill to see for myself what the situation is regarding rice husk ( not that I don't trust the missus implicitly but I've learnt that due to my lack of Thai languge skills that sometimes it pays to have a lookee see for ones self, turns out they're selling to the local ice factory (possibly to facilitate the sliding of the large blocks of ice ??) and that it is also seasonal. In the cool season there is not such demand from the factory and with the rice harvest over and plenty of grain in the granaries people are sending more rice for milling. There was also a language barrier with me asking the wife for "glab kao", whilst what we know as bio-char is referred to as "glab dam" husks from the the mill seem to be referred to as "mee kao" could be a Northern dialect thing but wouldn't swear by it !! Anyway picked up 5 large bags in their borrowed "rot khaen" with the promise of as much as I can take when available . So I reckon I'll stock up while the goings good (bio-char here I come), looks like I may have to build a storage barn for all the raw materials maybe this is why the wife stalls on occasion as the new house is her priority .

cheers for now J

Hi Folks

Welcome to the forum Ron hope you find some useful info here and feel free to pick the guys brains if you have any questions that you can't find the answer to in the archives.

Strange days indeed Lickey !! We're just completing the rice harvest (been at it for three weeks now, it's a community effort round these parts so you work out how many days labour you require to harvest your crop and then work for others in the village for the required amount of days and they repay the favour, additional labour that may be required are payed in rice. It's a nice system and means that labour costs are kept to a minimum although it works best on holdings of 20 rai or less to get your harvest in for free.) It seemed a short rainy season this year and the weather really hot leading to weakened tillers in the rice crop which was flattened by the winds that herald the start of the cool season. Most years the odd patch of rice gets blown down but this season the whole plain was laying flat, it really makes for hard work at the cutting stage as if it isn't bad enough already !!. It also seems that the lack of rain has affected quantity with everyone reporting lower yields than normal.

FF, good to see you back on the forum and glad the organic rice did well for you. Yeah I agree about the difficulty of sourcing raw materials such as manure etc.. This year I managed to get 30 large rice sacks of cow bedding from an uncle. I always spend a couple of days with the guy when I return to LOS on the small farm he manages for a spot of fishing on his 2 rai lake a BBQ and a few beers. Whilst there 5 or 6 different guys turned up enquiring about the availability of manure, lucky I got in first. At the moment having difficulty sourcing rice husks of all things from the mills in the village as well as rice bran. The bran I can understand as the mill owner is now raising pigs and uses it for feed but no idea where the rice hulls are disappearing to !! Another mystery that will no doubt become clear in time !!

Talking of mysteries, I solved the the riddle of the non-existent water pipe on my plot It turns out that the new mains system running past the plot which I hoped to connect to is 5 baht per unit (cubic metre ?) whereas the existing village supply which is a fair distance from the plot (700 meters) is only 1 baht per unit so there was a bit of a dilemma without me there to make a decision and in the end the easy approach was taken and nothing at all was done. I talked to the village headman about running the cheaper supply to my land (okay the wife did ) really with a view as to where to lay the pipework so it was much to my suprise that the next day him and his second in command trenched and lay the pipe to my plot for free !! That just left me to trench and lay 200m of pipe to supply varios points around the plot, whilst the trench was there I also lay pipework for the more expensive supply (apparently potable hence the price) to supply the future house.

Having water meant I could crack on and get the compost heaps going, the upside of having such rampant weed growth on the plot is the sheer amount of biomass that has accumulated (gotta look at the positives or I might just cry). I'm making some fast 6 week compost innoculated with EM and molasses which is turned every 3 days (to control temperature and moisture levels) as well as some slower burning more traditional piles. I've also managed to plant about 20 mixed fruit trees, using naturally produced rice straw compost from where last seasons rice straw had rotted down, in the planting holes.

My parents visited last week and the old man helped me to put up the eucalyptus framework for a shade house so at the moment I'm stitching together the fabric to cover it. It covers an area of 64 square meters so plenty of room for raising seedlings, a tree nursery and some growing beds for the more delicate veggies. Young Ton also helped with the frame, measuring and sawing poles etc and my parents were really taken by him commenting what a happy little lad he was and admiring the way he never seems to get bored with the job in hand.

This week I'm going to try my hand at knocking up some Bokashi to ferment our kitchen waste and when I track down the elusive rice husks biochar is the order of the day. I'll be interested to know how you get on with the rice straw FF, my only concern would be the lightweight nature of the carbonised straw and preventing it from blowing about during the process but the material is so readily available (we'll be moving 6 truckloads from the paddy onto the plot shortly to use as mulch and for yet more compost ) that I would consider giving it a go, but hey I'll let you do the experimenting

There has been a bit of cooler weather in the last week so it seems like it's time to start sowing up (haven't forgotten you Lickey, please PM me your address) , but what with all the infrastructure I've been working on (still got the ponds to sort out and stock) it's gonna be a struggle to prepare beds in time to grow as much as I would like this year but I'm sure I'll get something in the ground.

Take care all

Jandtaa

Hi Bina

Google translate has been supporting Thai for a while now and it is steadily improving. I use the google translate bookmarklet which can be found here link (simply drag the google translate link from this page onto your browser bookmark toolbar or bookmark folder and click on it when you want to translate a web page. I've been using it to translate posts from this forum to show the wife and although it's not perfect and a few words remain untranslated the wife says she can understand. My Thai isn't brilliant but I can read recipes and the translation of some of the recipes for organic potions are translated fairly accurately, you may have to help with a few words. You can also now upload PDF's to google translate although this could be a slow process with a slow connection but definitley worth a try !! I do have some links to some Thai sites that I'll dig out for you but I don't think they go very indepth . Anyway try the google approach ( at least with this method you can read the info in English first so you know what information your husband is getting, which should help in discussion ) and have a look at this subforum (and the useful links etc..) in Thai and let us know what hubby thinks !

Cheers for now J

Hi folks

This PDF explains treating the turbidity of ponds fairly nicely. It deals with using alum or gypsum as the flocculating agents but you could also use the bucket method it describes to calculate the minimum quantity of lime necessary to clear the pond with a bit of adaptation.

turbidity.pdf

cheers for now J

Bokeh describes the rendition of out-of-focus points of light.

Bokeh is different from sharpness. Sharpness is what happens at the point of best focus. Bokeh is what happens away from the point of best focus.

Bokeh describes the appearance, or "feel," of out-of-focus areas. Bokeh is not how far something is out-of-focus, bokeh is the character of whatever blur is there.

Sorry I don't really understand where Bokeh comes into this ?? As you quote "Bokeh is the rendition of out of focus points of light"

This is evident in the following example (not my photo by the way) :

Yumidesigns photo is simply blurred due to camera shake, I concur that a tripod and delayed exposure may of helped produce a more pleasing photo to most of us but fear that it would have created an image that would of offended YD's artistic sensibilities ( ie. not out of the box enough ).

cheers J

"Its up to you, copy some trite image of the past, or forget what you have seen and launch into the unknown and expose a new way of looking at things"

Does this mean you only approve of badly composed, under or over exposed, out of focus shots ( been a while since we've seen an example of how not to do it from Yumidesign's school of photography)?? Or should we not try as "amateurs" to emulate the professionals and produce incredible shots such as those that 51NAH has been kind enough to grace this forum with ( hats off fella !! ) ?

You talk of trite images but I think we're all fed up with your trite comments !! Blue/Green/turquoise/chartreuse whatever ! Should I never take another landscape shot incorporating Sky ( whether it be Azure, Cerulean, Sapphire or heaven help us sky blue) and grass ( be it Jade, Emerald or just good old grass green) ?

Yumidesign, please do not bother replying to this post just do us all a favour and take your unwanted, pathetic and infantile comments elsewhere, I think most members post in this thread to receive constructive criticism of their photos, something you seem unable to comprehend although it has been pointed out to you on numerous occasions ( I won't stoop to your level and quote from a dictionary/thesaurus the meaning of the words "constructive criticism" I'm sure you can look it up for yourself although hopefully it takes you a while and keeps you from posting here !!)

To Everyone else keep 'em coming there's some really top class shots being posted !!

cheers J

Hi MRaina

I think you're going to have problems sourcing organic in Thailand. I had a quick look on the net to confirm spirulina was the blue green algae the missus sometimes cooks up into a revolting green gloop (harvested wild from mountain streams up here in the North). I'm guessing yours was a dried product (powder). The problem is all the Thai farms producing it are most likely to be using a chemical form of nitrogen as the fertiliser input so it is not going to be strictly organic.

Regarding the labelling, "organic" is a Thai loan word and has a whole range of different meanings to them in terms of what is allowed, quite often it seems that it is used to denote products that have been grown without the use of herbicides and pesticides but have used chemical forms of fertiliser. It is also worth considering that they may have simply copied the labelling of a western product and don't fully comprehend its meaning. Probably your only chance of action is if the company has fraudulently used the logos of one of the accreditation agencies who may wish to take action but then again TIT.

Regarding the impurities (sand grit etc) difficult to tell if this originates from the grower ( depends whether he is growing in soil/sand or using substrate as some growers do) or the distributor adulterating the product. I'm guessing it's the former as this stuff is a nightmare to clean all the impurities from the fibers (the wife and family will sit there for hours washing and preparing it !!). There is a big farm in Petchabun province I think that farms in a closed system, laboratory cultured and then grown out in closed ponds or raceways (also has a spin drying tower) so this maybe a cleaner product but I'm guessing still chemical fertilser inputs.

Cheers for now J

Hi SD2

Whilst I may agree with your sentiments the "rules is the rules" as they say and I would like to remind you that one of these is not discussing moderation.

I have PM'd the OP to try and discover the generic product that he believes is fraudulently labelled as it would help to know what we are discussing in order to assist him in addressing his problem. I'm also intrigued to know what organic product sells for 3600 baht a kilo, It's gotta beat rice,cassava,rubber etc although maybe it's such high input that to make a profit one has to adulterate it with grit/sand/clay .

cheers for now J

This is the logo of ACT the organic accreditation agency in Thailand which is itself internationally accredited (IFOAM) through IOAS. Obviously not all organic producers are going to register as there is a licensing fee etc... and TIT afterall. On the otherhand many larger Thai producers especially those with an eye to exporting organic produce have joined the scheme. I have included their address below as they may be able to help you find an accredited organic product.

619/43 Kiatngamwongwan building (1st floor)

Ngamwongwan Rd.

Tambon Bangkhen Muang

Nonthaburi 1100

tel: +66 29526677 email: [email protected]

cheers J

Hi SD2

Very nice pet project to have !! What's the spacing of the trees just out of interest ??

J

Hi Rich

this site is a great resource for finding Thai names of plants. There always seem to be regional differences between the names Thais give various plants but this site usually gives more than one. This link is to a page for moringa but if you follow the link at the bottom of the page to "gateway" you will find links to a wealth of plant name databases.

Thai names for moringa

The species of duckweed harvested as food in Northern Thailand is Wolffia globosa (tropical watermeal) and the Thai name for it is "kai nam" or literally water eggs. There is another aquatic plant (also a possible invasive weed) called duckweed fern (more commonly referred to in literature as azolla pinnata) I think the Thai name may be "nae daeng" but not 100% sure, which is used in integrated fish farming (rice/fish/azolla) and as a green manure in the paddy fields and also utilised as an animal feed due to its high protein content and might be worth a google.

Hope this is of some help and make sure you keep us posted with news on your project .

cheers for now J

p.s. I have a PDF on maggot farming somewhere, not sure of the species used but I'll try and dig it out.

Cheers for the link Oodii looks like a good nursery, will definitely be paying him a visit or have some culms sent up on the bus to Chiang Rai !

J

Hi Folks

Arrived back in LOS a fortnight ago and have been working out in the "Jungle Gym" on a daily basis !! Pretty much the whole plot was covered in 6 foot high weeds!

So armed with a machete and a pair of sturdy boots ( just in case of any snakes) hacked a pathway into the plot and set at it. Turned out to not be as bad as it first looked, all the areas that I'd had time to sow up with green manure ( a mixture of legumes) before I left last April were relatively weed free and the bean plants were still providing good ground cover.

I decided to see if any fruit tree seedlings had survived, so cleared away the bean vines from amongst the pigeon pea bushes, most of which stand about 8 foot tall, ( interesting to note that although they are drought resistant the largest specimens are those which have grown up amongst the clumps of lemon grass), which themselves were entwined with fruiting winged-bean. Underneath the bean vines I found several ripe pumpkins and kilos of ash gourd. Sadly however no fruit trees apart from a sad looking pomelo and a six inch stick ( evidently pruned back from the 2 foot high seedling I'd planted ) of asian pear. Turns out sister in law cut all the fruit trees back like this and all of the nitrogen fixing trees and they all subsequently died !! The bananas however have grown well and those amongst the pigeon pea had almost zero wind damage and were a lot healthier than those planted along the boundary by SIL.

Most of the grasses that had grown next to this "permaculture" area were clump forming varieties so relatively easy to remove roots and all with a Thai hoe. I've cleared this area completely and will extend the "edge" by laying down cardboard from the recyclers, covering with compost and the remains of last seasons rice straw and planting up with more legumes, NFT's and replacement as well as some new fruit trees.

The raised area of topsoil destined to become bio-intensive raised beds is covered in the nastiest weed of all !! A giant form of the dreaded "sleeping" weed, one of those acacias whose leaves wilt upon touching. The bastard thorns are like razor wire and rip your skin in a really nasty way, I'd rather roll naked in a patch of stinging nettles than deal with this stuff. Luckily young Ton turned up with a couple of mates and offered to help so whilst I hacked away with an extended billhook Ton and his mates waded in with rakes and hoes to remove the lethal branches ( mostly about 10 foot in length) and formed huge piles for composting. I think they thought I was a bit of a pussy with my workboots, gauntlets and long sleeved shirt whilst they were attired in the usual shorts and flip-flops !!

It's been really hot since I've returned with only one day of really heavy rain , its really noticeable how dry this monsoon season has been and the soil is already drying out and quite workable,. I brought a min-max greenhouse thermometer with me from the UK and it's registering 38 degrees most days, so I've been starting at 6 am and working through till about 11 am and young Ton keen as ever joins me most days after his breakfast. Ton's keen to know when we stock the fish ponds as he wants to do a spot of fishing !! One of the ponds is looking good with very minimal erosion to the banks and is nearly full complete with a resident pair of breeding frogs and 60-70 froglets (about an inch long ). There is however an eighteen inch long water snake which I'm sure will reduce the number of little hoppers before too long ! I'm going to plant up the banks with some vetivier grass, canna lillies, taro etc and have germinated some sacred lotus seeds as well. The water itself is very turbid and I need to look at some form of flocculant, possibly gypsum ? I've also brought a pond testing kit with me so will check ph, nitrate and nitrite levels and try to adjust accordingly before stocking with a mixed bunch of fingerlings from some local fish farms I know of. It will really be a question of what they have available but would like to go for a mixed bag of species, trying to stock the entire water column but at a faily low density ( this pond is more ornamental and for a bit of pleasure fishing. The other pond is looking fairly sad, it's failed to fill up as much and there is quite bad erosion both from rain run off and wind erosion, so might need some remedial work. The sides did end up being rather steep when it was dug ( the excavator operator wasn't as skilled as the guy who dug the first pond ) and it was harder to ensure rainwater ran away from the pond rather than into it. I know there are some good threads regarding these problems in the general farming forum so I have some bedtime reading to do !! I was going to try raising single sex Tilapia in this pond along with some catfish in hapas but this may have to go on hold.

A couple of days ago I noticed that the grasses (the predominant weed on the rest of the plot especially around the first pond and where the house will eventually be sited ) were starting to flower so got in a neighbour with their brush-cutter to strim them down. I carefully explained the areas to be cut and stressed not to cut the beans as I want to leave the plants in to retain some moisture in the ground until rice harvest time when I can use rice straw for a mulch. It was all going according to plan until I went to lunch, when I came back they were slashing merrily with a machete amongst the beans !! A few years ago I'd of been doing my best Basil Fawlty impression but I've just become resigned to this type of misunderstanding and give it the old "mai pen rai", it's not the end of the world but means last years partially decomposed rice straw will have to be utilised as mulch instead of composted with the weeds I've cleared and the 20 odd bags of manure that I'm hopefully taking delivery of tomorrow. When I asked the wife later what the hel_l had possessed them she told me that they had noticed they were a nasty weed (looks very similar to a bean ) whose flowers cause a nasty skin irritation so they were doing me a favour. Gotta love a creative excuse and while I think I have come across this weed (think it has purple flowers) these were red and black beans that I sowed myself and were not in flower !!

Yesterday I decided to investigate where the water supply had been installed on the plot so did a bit of exploratory digging. Was looking for a 2" pipe running about 70 metres into the plot but instead discovered small bore pipe extending about a meter into the plot !! Oh the trials and tribulations !! I'm now in the process of digging a trench and laying some pipeline so I can rig up some form of irrigation before I start my sowing schedule. I've also got to rig up some form of shade netting, will probably utilise some euca poles I have left over from when I fenced the plot, and build a little shelter come tool store, so I'm a busy boy !!

I will try and post some photos over the next couple of days and when I get on top of the plot will start posting more regularly on the forum, did a bit more research whilst back in the UK, and yeah you guessed it some more PDF's to share. I've brought a load of seed with me to trial so will try and keep you abreast of any successes and the inevitable failures and deal in more depth with observations on various aspects of my little plot.

Cheers for now J

Hi Gary

Is it possible that it has been cut back at some point ? This looks similar to regrowth from a mature plant that we lopped last year when it caught up with the TV aerial.

cheers J 

Hi Samuijimmy Just picked up some borax from a pharmacy (the old fashioned type) in Chiang Rai . The pharmacist knew it as boric acid, 20 baht per 100 g cheers for now J

Hi MrBojangles

Flower drop could also be caused by large fluctuations between day and nighttime temperatures.Not sure what the temperature fluctuation is in Saudi but here in Chiang Rai in the cold season it drops to a couple of degrees at night although is thirty during the day. At this time of year flowers do not set on the eggplant or chillis but they keep producing flower and fruits are formed when the hot season arrives.

cheers for now J 

Hi Steve

From your photo it appears that your seedlings have become "leggy," the stems being elongated and limp, and the foliage sparse. Leggy seedlings usually occur due to insufficient lighting, too much heat, or too much fertilizer. I guess that it's not a heat issue with the variety that you are growing and as you say some are fertilised and some are not but have the same symptoms it would seem to be a light issue.

Try giving them some morning and evening sun although as SD2 says do not put them out in the midday sun. If you can transplant them without breaking them repot deep in the potting mix (right up to the first tue leaves, tomatos have the ability to grow roots along their entire stem) as this will give them a chance to develop a stronger stem. Finally as SD2 has already noted do not over water. There does not appear to be any signs of damping off at the moment but that type of soil mix and overwatering can lead to fungal infections. 

Good luck J

Hi Mr Wiggle

I suggest you use the quiet time (rainy season where you are by any chance ?) to use this forum as a kind of archive (there's a good deal of useful info going back a good deal of years from some very knowledgable guys-try using the search function)

If you read a bit more through all the threads you may find all kinds of enlightenment ie. MF although not anti-organic simply does not post in this sub forum (mores the pity) so is unlikeley to comment on Saraburi farm (more positive feedback from your good self may help to stimulate more debate on the subject) but has been posting in the general farming forum recently (before your last couple of posts) so maybe like the good man you too can move on, sorry but you're beginning to sound like a stuck record.

regards J

Hi Don 

Looks interesting !!

Any chance of some close ups of the label (ingredients), is there some form of "sticker" in the formula or do you need to add one ? Whats the application rate of this stuff, how far does your 180 baht go ? 

cheers for now J

I believe MF is happy to be contacted ( please PM me for his email address if he hasn't already forwarded it to you)

Please refrain from commenting further in this thread as advised by Bina in an earlier post. I can assure you there is nothing sinister about the situation. MF's posting rights were temporarily suspended for violating a forum rule in a topic totally unrelated to farming, as a result he has informed us of his decision to no longer take an active role in ThaiVisa but is still more than happy to answer outstanding farming related questions from members via email at the above @address.

cheers for now J

Was it worth the trip MrWiggle ?? Been thinking about a visit for a while now but it is a bit of a trek for me so any info most welcome.

cheers J

No secrecy SD2

I believe it was this rule  

2) Not to express disrespect of the King of Thailand or anyone else in the Thai royal family, whether living or deceased, nor to criticize the monarchy as an institution. Speculation and comments of a political nature are not allowed when discussing HM The King or the Royal family. Discussion of the lese majeste law or lese majeste cases is permitted on the forum, providing no comment or speculation is made referencing the royal family. To breach this rule will result in immediate ban

cheers for now J

Hi guys

liked this site for its views on how chickens should be raised and fed chickenfeed

cheers for now J