WatersEdge

Not enough information.

Tons per day?

Haul distance?

Truck and Trailer 30 ton load for relatively long hauls,

say more than 300 km

will be around B1.20 / km ton

Ten Wheel 16 ton load around B1.50 / km ton

Therefore B1,000 / ton will buy

830 km on a Truck & Trailer

670 km on a Ten Wheeler

If you use 6 wheel, 4 wheel or pickup truck it will cost you progressively more per unit weight distance, but you may not have enough to fill a big truck in one day.

Can you refrigerate several days' harvest

until you have accumulated a full truck load?

Is there a cold storage warehouse in your area?

Not that I know anyone doing this,

it's just the logical solution to shipping a perishable product long distance.

If you spread a layer of ice into a pile of corn,

layering it as you add more corn

cover it with a tarp to minimize air exposure

and let the cold water run down through the stack

you could chill a partial load of corn,

holding it cool several days

Once you get the corn cobs chilled throughout they will not generate further internal heat by spoilage,

but warm corn as brought from the field will be very quickly degraded.

The key is to get it chilled all the way through the cob,

immediately after picking,

and not let it get warm again until time to cook.

Dropping it in an ice water bath is best,

with a bit of copper sulfate or tannic acid as antimicrobial.

Sweet Corn shippers in Chiang Mai consolidate many farmers' daily pick onto full truckloads with no apparent effort to chill in advance.

The vineyard immediately east of the highway

between Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai,

a short distance north of Charoen Resort

uses steel frame clear plastic hoop shelters over the vines,

to keep rain water completely off

then drip irrigation to give the proper amount of water

The are open side, with an open space between rows

so all other climate factors are as before.

Not possible to go wrong on free manure.

Since you have nothing growing, it could not be "too" anything

Urine is the best part for Nitrogen content.

Thus the fertilizer name Urea, which is the synthetic of the original.

Thanks Khonwan,

B150 / 25 kg => B6.00 / kg Retail

B120 / 25 kg => B4.80 / kg @ 50 bag Volume

50 x 25 kg => 1,250 kg

This price scale makes it cost effective

to apply Sulfuric Acid 98% to Rock Phosphate 13.2%P (Elemental),

so that the Phosphorous is completely water soluble in the form of Phosphoric Acid,

with Gypsum as the byproduct.

So if your application also calls for Phosphorous,

you need not even separate the products

Mix the correct weights of each into a plastic tub, and let it work a few hours.

I am so curious on the purpose of Gypsum in a pond.

As pH Buffer?

I have somewhere in mind that fish don't like Sulfur

You say you have posted on the topic...I can go hunt it from your profile

Hi BAYBOY

What does the DKT Gypsum cost?

It will not break down clay by surface application.

It has to be plowed into the clay, or scattered over the broken clay surface after plowing.

It is very mildly water soluble, so it would very slowly leach down into the soil.

But if there is runoff it would be carried away just as quickly.

In order to significantly break the clay, you need a huge amount of Gypsum.

Wonder when the Chom Tong farmers will discover it in natural deposits.

Hi happyjune,

How much Gypsum do you need and where are you located?

Do you have Limestone available in your area?

There's more than one direction to approach this.

You can buy Sulfuric Acid 98% H2SO4 for around B14/kg,

mix it with limestone, and poof, you have Gypsum

CaCO3 + H2SO4 => CaSO4 + CO2 + H2O

It's going to be more expensive this way

than by picking up sheetrock scrap,

but it gives you a perfectly fine slurry

If you have high pH soil you spray the acid on the soil

and the same reaction happens in place

The second method if you have high pH soil is to use

Ammonium Sulfate 21-0-0 + 24S fertilizer.

When the plant consumes the Ammonia the Sulfate is left behind.

It will then bond with available Calcium to form Gypsum.

Look back a few weeks into the forum,

and you will see a similar thread.

Avocado is grown here and they can be good,

it's apparently a matter of grower knowledge of what a ripe avocado looks like.

They tend to pick them to early before the oils are established,

which makes them watery without good flavor.

There may be a matter of excessive water to the tree,

which also could be remedied by a waterproof ground cover.

Hi andycrosby,

There is a wealth of information already on this forum.

The big ones here are

Great White

Landrace

Duroc

Someone else will probably comment from long expertise,

as 11 others are signed in while I write,

but I was very pleased with the first litter of Duroc / Great White cross.

They tend to be a smaller frame but faster growing than the straight Great White.

If you want some great brood stock,

I have three adults closing out my previous operation

Great White Boar => two years old long as a train

Duroc Boar => two years old very nice Mae Jo University purebred.

Great White Sow => two years old second litter just weaned.

long body frame, great mother.

These adults have all survived PRRS virus (Blue Ear Disease),

so their immunity is established for life,

and the Sow will transfer her antibodies to her babies.

There are now two camps of hog raising in Thailand.

Those who have already had PRRS and those who are running scared.

I've been there done that, have no future worries.

That's not to say these animals are now infectious.

They could be added to a PRRS scared herd without danger.

You or anyone else may PM with active interest.

Mae Jo University, north of Chiang Mai, has a very respectable Swine Unit.

Evidenced by the near impossibility of buying any of their animals.

If you are able to buy from them, you cannot possibly go wrong.

They also offer Chinese PiuTian breed,

All four breeds as

1. Purebred

2. Two way Cross

From which the Grower may brood Four Way cross if desired.

Hi happyjune

Gypsum CaSO4.2H20 is available where you find it.

Sheet rock scraps along the highway, in trash dump piles and at building supply stores.

Depending on your local geology, you may find deposits.

I have several low grade dirty deposits in my area,

which doesn't hurt the fertilizer value of it.

One place has tiny clay chips and another has round stones & gravel.

Look for road cuts where the white color bank has dissolved away.

Gypsum attracts water and is somewhat water soluble,

so it disappears with the water quicker than soil.

The Lime you mention is very strong, pH 15

it's Calcium Hydroxide Ca(OH)2 Poon Kao Cement White

If you want the more gentle form get Limestone dust pH 8.3

This topic just came up a few days ago in an earlier thread,

so I won't repeat that information here.

Poon Kao seems cheap to you as compared to Oz,

but Limestone dust is quite literally "dirt" cheap

Even Limestone dust is too strong if applied in excess

If your soil pH is already high enough but you feel you need Calcium,

then of course Gypsum is the easy answer.

We don't have enough information to respond smartly,

so I'll throw a few setang worth at the risk of being ill informed.

My first prediction from the information available is

The Catfish are starved,

of course the prawns are gone if they were bite size to the catfish.

4,500 Catfish in a 40x40 meter pond

could use a lot more than 20 kg feed per week.

That's only 4.4 grams per fish.

Not a bad rate per day if the fish are small,

but if catfish are hungry they will eat.

Now that they are reduced to 20 kg per month, 10 kg bread, and bugs drawn to a light, they must be voracious.

We don't know the size of any of these as they went in,

and we don't know if the Catfish are

Clarias (Pla Duk) or

Pangasius (Pla Sawai)

Clarias are much more aggressive than Pangasius

Hi andycrosby,

You have identified a primary struggle of farming in Thailand,

Can't buy it in the beginning, with prices too high

Can't sell it in the end, with prices too low

but plenty who steal in between.

It's the story of my life raising fish, pigs and goats.

Hang in there, by steady patient exposure the sources and the markets will develop.

Now that I'm out of the business, I have a reliable cash buyer for ten hogs a day,

developed right near the end.

Sold my whole herd of goats to one man who would have bought another herd the next day.

For hogs, I determined that a grower pretty well needs to breed his own piglets on the farm.

Not only does it provide a somewhat predictable supply,

it eliminates disease imported from every new pig brought from an outside source.

You can spend the Vet rich fighting the next round of sickness,

so I think it's best to have a closed system.

I agree with troysantos,

Perennial Peanut

As I read down through the thread I was thinking point for point that it matches

It is used as a landscape ground cover in front of a lot of government buildings and hotels.

It looks like a Peanut, but never gets tall, never matures and dies, just keeps its small place.

It's very tasty to animals, so you will have to limit access, they will eat it all.

It doesn't spread well, you have to pull some from here to cover over there.

I think the plant that bina refers to is a member of genus Ipomoea

In the US it's called Morning Glory, a problematic field weed.

If we had time to recognize it, it's great feed,

but it's strictly in the way of serious farming.

It's called Pak Boong as the field variety, Water Convulvus it says on the seed package

There are several varieties that I've seen.

1. The ground crawling one bina refers to

2. The pond spreading one Ipomea aquatica

3. Pak Boong The field domesticated nice one that grows around 0.50m tall

All three of these are highly palatable to animals. Everything loves it, pigs, goats, geese

People of course as well.

The ground crawling one is very drought hardy, will survive doing nothing waiting for a bit of rain.

One note that I found interesting...it is related to Sweet Potato, Ipomea batatas

After I saw the name, I then saw the relation, never would have connected the two on my own.

Merging the case history with the coming need.

jonnyscot

2,100 m3 total

165 loads @ 12.73 m3 / load

B900 / load => B70.71 / m3

B148,500 Total

Carrying these numbers to swissie

800 m3 Total

63 loads @ 12.70 m3 per load

B900 / load => B56,700 Total

Does the price include tractor to spread?

In my case mentioned above, it did not.

On a separate job

A Ford 6610 with a dozer blade cost B600 / hour

with a skilled operator who shot a 110 x 20 meter pad in

to 0.20 m error throughout.

From the seat of a tractor the man had a very good eye for level.

There was a lot more to that job than just spreading truckloads of fill,

so I am not able to comment on how much spreading fill should cost.

I use coconut husk

free from two local wholesalers

who are happy to see me carry away their disposal problem.

It is good weed barrier until it eventually decomposes, then it's still good absorbent.

It takes a long time to decompose, I'm going on a year for the first that I spread.

Shade Cloth is UV stable, I've had it over barbed wire fences for several years.

The blue plastic window screen also is UV stable.

It comes in 2 and 4 meter wide rolls, also 100 meters long I think.

Since it is a tighter pattern than shade cloth it may stop weeds

Shade Cloth is B1,400 for a 2 x 100 meter roll.

A six wheel truck cannot carry 24 m3 of dirt.

A ten wheel carries 10m3, 15,000 kg

so a six wheel should carry only about 5 m3,

and a four wheel perhaps 2 if it's a very heavy axle.

I pay B900 for a ten wheel load of fill clay

Hi cheerybie,

One of my favorite topics,

as I have a yard that a year ago was stark bare hard fill clay.

I have covered it steadily in coconut husk which I pick up free from local wholesalers.

To them it's a disposal problem.

To me it's enough top quality mulch to cover my entire yard.

I pick up corn cob debris from the local granary,

always cheap, and this week they just gave me a bunch for free.

I feed the good grade of this to hogs, so have their waste blended into the parts they can't eat.

The cob fragments are absorbent, so the best part of hog waste doesn't get away.

I buy piles of Mung Bean hay from the farmers in December,

when it is nicely divided in a good animal feed pile with another pile of coarse straw.

Rice Hull is easy to handle and generally abundant for cheap or free.

Look about your area for any plant matter that someone else doesn't want.

Be prepared for people to think you are not well.

It is crazy to spread stuff like that out on the ground they will think.

Spreading it over the surface is a start,

but at some point you need to work it down into the soil.

If the area is large enough for equipment to enter, plow it under

I find trenches are a great multiple purpose method.

Any raw organic material requires Nitrogen to decompose.

Materials with good animal feed value contained will decompose nicely on their own.

Protein = Nitrogen = Good Animal feed = Fast decomposition

While materials void of Nitrogen will change very little for a long time.

Eventually contact with soil microbes and water will decompose most anything.

By extreme example,

Lay a stick of bamboo out on the ground and see how long it takes to decompose.

Bury it in the dirt and watch it vanish

As you build the soil, you need to move dirt anyway,

so move it with design to get much greater results.

I've cut trenches with water level bottom,

0.50 x 0.50 meter

filled with partially degraded coconut husk,

mixed roughly with clumps of clay mixed throughout.

then ridged a bit above surrounding surface level.

This simultaneously solves any drainage problem, as surface water is free to seep into the ditch.

As it does, it is absorbed into the coconut sponge, where plants can easily reach it as needed.

Since the bottom of the ditch is level, water in excess from one point will slowly balance throughout the entire trench.

Space these trenches according to your intended crop of the future.

I have mine on 1.5 meter centers.

If I was building on a slope, I'd cut the trenches on the contour.

The usefulness of packed water retention trenches on a hillside is easy to anticipate.

If you add fertilizer to the trench as you pack the plant debris in,

it will be preloaded for maximum growth.

As mentioned above, go heavy on the Nitrogen to accelerate decomposition.

I buy Crusher Fines from the Aggregate Quarry Crushing Plant.

Thai name is Hin Fun, Stone Tiny

B3.000 for a 15,000 kg, 10 m3, ten wheel truck load

B0.20 / kg for Limestone CaCO3

Ca 40% by weight

This is fresh off the crusher, no further refinement,

dust, sand, chips, not uniformly ground fine,

so it is not as fast acting as finely ground dust would be.

But for the price, I don't care that a chip will remain in the soil ten years or 100

Applying the idea to other locations,

It is assumed that the crushed rock raw material is limestone.

Not just any Hin Fun Stone Tiny will serve the purpose.

My local quarry also has perhaps 10% Anhydrite Gypsum, CaSO4

so I get a bit of Sulfur with Calcium as well

Limestone typically has a variable percentage of Magnesium MgCO3 as well

=> Dolomite is a curious mixture CaMg(CO3)2

Calcium and Magnesium are very similar in their chemical characteristics,

and are both a beneficial second tier nutrient.

In few cases is a Limestone deposit pure CaCO3

Limestone CaCO3 dissolves in water to pH 8.3.

while you want to only bring soil up to 6.5 to 7.0

so it is possible to increase pH more than desired.

It works great for gently raising the pH of fish pond water.

I had a pond acidic so that algae would not grow.

While it was very clear and pretty with a few pond weeds,

it wasn't a good situation for fish.

Dumped 50 buckets of CaCO3 in it, and after a few weeks to steadily dissolve

the entire plant life situation of the pond brightened up.

Note that if you are pumping from a pond,

you can dump the limestone into the water,

so that all the water you pump from that pond has a healthy amount of calcium dissolved.

I had another pond where fish refused to grow even though they ate heartily

Finally figured out that it was Calcium deficiency.

The ground that pond is excavated into is Bentonite clay mixed with Oil Shale

Dumped several hundred pails Limestone in, and all was well,

except that the fish were already skeletally stunted.

I had made the problem even worse by feeding the fish high Phosphorous rice bran.

Not today's topic.

I lost a whole crop of Daikon Radish by putting on too much.

A field that had grown nicely the crop before went into stall no growth mode just a few months later.

I was mistakenly under the notion that it was pH neutral.

It is gentle, not neutral.

Daikon will not grow in pH 8.3

Good news is that grasses like a higher pH, so now those idle fields are full of cow feed.

It enters the root zone only as water carries it down,

so if you want results in terms of weeks rather than years

you must plow it down into the soil.

Hi canopy,

I stretched 2 meter shadecloth over my barbed wire fence.

They could have cut it and passed through, but never did.

I never had a cut shadecloth in 4 years.

Cost of shadecloth is B1,400 for a 100 meter roll.

B1.40 per meter

It is UV stable, so will last for many years.

Hi farmerjo,

I'm naturally curious what forbidding omen the plastic bags on a stick serve.

If you have cultural insight, I want to know please.

For any who may read and scoff at such a silly solution,

understand that while logic has no bearing out here,

spooks and omens carry the day.

There are ascending grades of spookery,

and the hunter gatherer crowd are extremely superstitious.

It takes a bit more to spook the village and city crowds,

as they are so much more sophisticated.

and they have debts they'd like to pay.

The hunter gatherers are not outright invasive.

They will steal stuff if it's easy and if there isn't a recognizable barrier.

A barbed wire fence is not recognizable, it's just meant to be crossed.

A mango tree by the side of the road is open for all, even in broad daylight.

They have no natural shame about it, it's just the way it is for them.

There are thieves who are invasive, but that's Thai not tribal.

Farm neighbors who smile and wave by day steal by night.

Suspect first those who you'd never suspect and you will be spot on.

Thieves very seldom travel from afar, they are familiar close in.

Employees are a solid bet as well....think the unthinkable.

If work schedule is slow that's when the thievery will skyrocket.

A man weary from the day will sleep when he could be stealing.

Odd thing in the thinking here is,

Being nice to someone signals them that you are open.

If you are generous and kind, it is interpreted that you want to share in all aspects.

You wouldn't be generous if you didn't have a comfortable excess.

An excess is shared by all and it's not considered wrong.

From that it very easily slips across the blurred line into night hours.

The line is unblurred a bit by defining the hour of the day,

so the thief does not want that distinction to be clarified.

It's against our nature, but you need to be a bit edgy to maintain a healthy distance.

I have told my labor team in an end of the day fireside chat,

In the daylight you have no better friend than the big Englishman

I wish you well.

I'm glad you work for me.

You must understand however.

At night I will cut your throat.

Don't make a dangerous mistake.

The adult is likely a very large brown beetle with fearsome looking jaws.

Similar to the Sugar Cane fighting beetle that's so popular as a school kid's show and tell,

but not the same species

We had such a beast in North Carolina,

with habits exactly as you describe.

A few days ago my sons were playing with one that appeared on our porch here in Mae Sot.

They wanted to know what it was, was it poisonous, all the questions a fascinated boy has.

I told them it's not poisonous and you can play with it all you like, just don't hazard your fingers in those jaws.

He won't give you lasting damage but it won't feel good for the moment.

The thing was finally annoyed enough to fly off into the nearest Tamarind tree.

I recognized the similarity immediately, so am fairly confident to connect the dots.

I'm not the bug expert around here, just a layman's observation of known patterns.

There are a lot of Avocado here in the north.

The fruit for sale tends to be watery and tasteless,

but that's because of too much water to the tree,

and picking the fruit before it is ready.

Most any fruit is tasteless if it's picked early.

In season the fruit is abundant and cheap,

partly because there's a lot of it and partly because Thais don't know what it is.

Both can be solved with attention to detail.

With increased market demand for good fruit the supply will improve.

Seems most of the pieces are available.

If each of you producing successfully should consolidate your product under one outlet,

both producer and customer would benefit.

Such a cooperative arrangement would accelerate the production of the missing pieces.

May the best organized win.

Hi afarang,

I'm impressed.

I've seen those little pop pop trucks around, but never really wanted one until reading your glowing description.

I like the Kubota 14hp RT-140 engine.

They run forever, and when it comes time to rebuild them,

it costs only B4,000 for a complete overhaul.

They come with a 12VDC power supply built in, for headlight and whatever accessory you may like.

The electric start is a nice feature, I've only looked.

With new Cylinder sleeve, piston, bearings it's good as new for another long run.

I've had occasion to rebuild more than I'd like, but those jobs were all due to operator neglect, abuse and flood,

no fault of the engine. Under reasonable conditions I'd not even know what a rebuild costs.

They weigh maybe 150kg, so two good men with a stout pole can lift the whole engine by the lifting eye provided,

moving it from one machine to the next. I use Kubota diesels on water pumps, tractors, roto tiller, hammer mill, corn sheller and concrete mixer.

Which brings me to the feasibility question for use on a road vehicle.

When you run to Makro 1.5 hours away 70 km, what is your fuel consumption?

Under full steady load wide open on a water pump they burn 2.5 liters per hour.

Pull them back to the load they were designed for and consumption drops to a little over 1.5 liters.

I get five hours on the 12 liter tank under full power, and around 8-9 hours on reasonable power demand.

Motoring up the road, what results do you find?

Considering that my Mitsubishi gets 11 km / liter, I'm curious by comparison.

70km would cost me 6.4 liters in the Mitsubishi.

I know this engine is a solution in search of a problem.

I've often wanted a heavier tractor than the Kubota NC-131 Two wheel unit,

simply because there isn't enough wheel ground contact or weight to use the engine power.

For this tractor the 14 hp engine is too much of a good thing, with a 9 hp being perfectly adequate.

I prefer continuity across the entire farm, so have only bought smaller engines if they were cheap as second hand,

or if the 14 hp was totally ridiculous...such as on the concrete mixer where I bought a new 7.5 hp.

The idea then is to build a 4 wheel tractor similar to your pickup truck,

Shorter but just as wide, with hydrostatic drive.

Hydrostatic provides 4 wheel drive, so that with the iron paddy wheels you'd have full use of all 14 hp.

You do lose efficiency with hydrostatic as compared to direct drive, but you gain fine tuned control.

Admittedly the price tag increases with hydrostatic drive, a pump and 2 motors are not cheap, then throw the control valves in.

Wow, we are almost to a skid steer, and that's where the idea really becomes attractive.

Imagine 4 wheels hard mounted to a solid frame, no steering mechanism, and very tight control of every movement.

For those who have operated a skid steer, the attraction will be immediate.

Skid Steer does tear up any surface it turns on, but that goes with the territory.

The other thing I've dreamed of is a trencher on a four wheel platform.

With hydrostatic drive, the machine could advance with complete control at a very slow speed required by the trencher,

with full direct drive power to the trencher unit.

Well, thanks for opening the topic, very fascinating.

Not Isaan, but Mae Sot, Tak province on Burma border..

Nicest field I know for rent this year is 60 rai offered for B100,000.

That comes to B1,700 / rai

This ground is a mix of gently sloped rolling ground with a band of paddy down the drainage path generally down the middle.

At the toe is all season river water which can be pumped efficiently.

Electricity is around 2km away.

For now Diesel, LPG, or NGV engines are the possible pump power

Fields with less advantages are renting for around B1,000 / rai.

The owner of this ground does not understand its full potential as fully irrigated.

He just happens to be correct in his greed by accident.

Dry Ground during Dry season, which the renter then devises his own method of irrigation,

rents for B500 / rai.

All this ground mentioned is good clay soil, low in Phosphorous, with good Potassium content.

Typically it has been burned so that his has very little organic material in the soil.