IsaanAussie

Currently the paddies drain into the pond until the pond reaches the paddy level (autofill only). More contouring to do to change that, currently we just gain the pond volume from water that would have drained off property. I haven't got an off season use for the water yet and the land is fallow through the dry. Still thinking that issue through.

Many years ago a friend told me the secret of farming was controlling water. He said only pump it once. Meaning do not move anything unless you add value in doing that. When I came here, rice was cut by hand, bundled and then moved to stacks to dry. Then it was threshed and bagged. The straw was then collected and stacked for later use as feed, bedding or whatever. The point being that apart from reciprocal labor, the machinery was paid for in kind, a couple of bags of rice per threshing of 100 bags. Today they worked for me, tomorrow I work for them. Look at the issue here at the moment, trucks parked up over fuel prices. Same thing for farming, logistics adds cost not margin. Biomass plants are not a money maker if they have to truck in fuel. Rice mills that burn the husks to produce electricity, then sell the char create profit. As do sugar mills that end up selling the bagasse to soil builders. "Real" harvesters control the chop length of the straw out the back of the machine. Leave it long if you want to bale it, up to you. Shred it if the worms are going to incorporate it into the soil for you. As Willie Nelson sings in "the scientist", no-one said it was easy, no-one said it would be this hard. I am still trying to redefine his next line "I'm going back to the start".

Your second picture, the 105 has me interested. Please let me know what the yield ends up being. We seeded about the same rate, but fert costs much higher

Happy to help out if you can give me a few more details of the farming operation. Given response here so far I would suggest you send me a message if you are interested and we take it offline. There are many variables to consider such as: Is she operating independantly or contracted? If contracted what are the details? If independant..... What is the weight of piglets she buys? Where does she buy them? Feed brand used. Grades used. Buy by bag or bulk. Quantities purchased? If known, what are the bag prices of feed or per tonne bulk? What FCR (feed conversion ratio) is achieved? Mortality rate on average? How sold, quantities and who buys? Current Bank of Thailand farm price quoted is 67 baht/kg. What is she getting? The feed cost you quoted seems high for a batch of 50 pigs, assuming they are grown out and sold at 100kg.

I think the current scheme is direct assistance to the farmers (up to 15 rai) not rice pledging. Could be wrong will ask the wife and advise if different.

Most butterflies lay eggs on a very limited number of plant species, often a few as one or two. Tracing the food source is a good way to identify which butterfly species the caterpillar is, or at least narrow the range. You can search the web for species based on the specific food plant is being attacked. We have butterflies that are active all year, in higher numbers at times when food is more plentiful. Thai climate (Isaan at least) does not effect them as much as cooler climates.

Try any of these For one liter (one quart) of natural caterpillar repellent, add a combination of the following: 1 teaspoon mild dish soap 1 tablespoon of any of the these (chopped): garlic cloves, onion, red pepper or ground chili To extract the active compounds, you can either: blend the mixture and let it sit for 24 hours, then filter it (keep the juice, discard the pulp). or, boil the chopped plants for 30 minutes, let it sit and cool down. After that, strain out the spent plant materials, keeping the liquid preparation

OK where to next to get to archived topics?

I would like to reference some posts that were removed when the Farming Forum was restarted around 2018. If possible to do this, then a few clues on how to find the archived posts would be helpful. Thanks.