Foreverford

FEF,

Dont know why I didnt think of this before. Stop in at Fruity's place next time and get some from Suphin. Theirs are great eating, we have some in the ground around the pig sty with some local ones we transplanted as well. No flowers or fruit yet on mine but they look pretty good so far. Got plenty of Culms already on the first lot. Our amazing N source has them jumping out of the ground.

Isaan Aussie

Yes they are jumping out of the ground. We don't do anything but cut them down after the first crop. I don't even know what kind that they are. My wife doesn't wait anymore for them to ripen as she cuts them down green,peels them,puts them in a solution,fries them adds sugar,puts them in the sun,bags them and sells them to a local store. We can't make them fast enough as the store keeps asking for more. We'd like to have a whole lot more trees but I don't have enough room for them.

I think I have the solution to polution. When you are ready to thin out and remove the suckers get in touch with me I'll supply the labor and do it for you and bring some rice if you need it and return something like 10% of the first crop (if you are somewhere near Burriram or Surin or.... hey where are you ol' RossaDavid? FF

I'm in Burriram but would appreciate any info if anyone has used and paid for surveying work. I've used them in the US Mexico and Kenya but it is a bit of like attorneys but not quite. Sooo.... thanks for any help

Hello FEF, the SIL rice has been flooded out the last two years, this banana grew out

by the old that sat in water for 3 weeks+. In one of the pic's you can see the cement

path, the water was over that 10 days. This 12 from Phi Mai

There is 2 other also coming up on their own.

This one stock of bananas was a lucky, they counted the number of fruit to get the

number for the u/g lottery.

The last pic is from the (3 days a week) by the side of the tracks market 5Km out

of downtown Korat. Bananas B.15 and fish B.20, from the next village over.

"She's been cheatingon you, while you've been cheating on her".

Can't get Taj out of my head.

rice555

nice photos those look like the kind of banaas that almost taste as sweet as a peach and have a very long shelf life. I like the fact that they appear to be able to take seaasonal flodding a bit. we got hit super hard a couple of times in the last 3 years as last year we eked out the big early drought with all oof our water reserves and was able to get the rice up and beautiful nearly head high and then got over two meters of water on top of it in the big floods that did in your SIL. His was from Khao yai ours came in torrents from the mountainds of Cambodia. Still we were able to bring in a smakll crop as it all survived but the yield was hideous.I got the levees up to about on the average of at least 1.5 meters high but still have alot more to move to get it high enough and right so we shouldn't be flooded in the 10,000 year floods as it seems we had the 100 year and the 1000 year floods in the last few years. . "Now they say Don't call us we'll call you if you something we need we'll get in touch with you" . Taj from "Like Never Before" CD FFFFF

nice photos those look like the kind of banaas that almost taste as sweet as a peach and have a very long shelf life. I like the fact that they appear to be able to take seaasonal flodding a bit. we got hit super hard a couple of times in the last 3 years as last year we eked out the big early drought with all oof our water reserves and was able to get the rice up and beautiful nearly head high and then got over two meters of water on top of it in the big floods that did in your SIL. His was from Khao yai ours came in torrents from the mountainds of Cambodia. Still we were able to bring in a smakll crop as it all survived but the yield was hideous.I got the levees up to about on the average of at least 1.5 meters high but still have alot more to move to get it high enough and right so we shouldn't be flooded in the 10,000 year floods as it seems we had the 100 year and the 1000 year floods in the last few years. . "Now they say Don't call us we'll call you if you something we need we'll get in touch with you" . Taj from "Like Never Before" CD FFFFF

Hello FEF, the SIL rice has been flooded out the last two years, this banana grew out

by the old that sat in water for 3 weeks+. In one of the pic's you can see the cement

path, the water was over that 10 days. This 12 from Phi Mai

There is 2 other also coming up on their own.

This one stock of bananas was a lucky, they counted the number of fruit to get the

number for the u/g lottery.

The last pic is from the (3 days a week) by the side of the tracks market 5Km out

of downtown Korat. Bananas B.15 and fish B.20, from the next village over.

"She's been cheatingon you, while you've been cheating on her".

Can't get Taj out of my head.

rice555

nice photos those look like the kind of banaas that almost taste as sweet as a peach and have a very long shelf life. I like the fact that they appear to be able to take seaasonal flodding a bit. we got hit super hard a couple of times in the last 3 years as last year we eked out the big early drought with all oof our water reserves and was able to get the rice up and beautiful nearly head high and then got over two meters of water on top of it in the big floods that did in your SIL. His was from Khao yai ours came in torrents from the mountainds of Cambodia. Still we were able to bring in a smakll crop as it all survived but the yield was hideous.I got the levees up to about on the average of at least 1.5 meters high but still have alot more to move to get it high enough and right so we shouldn't be flooded in the 10,000 year floods as it seems we had the 100 year and the 1000 year floods in the last few years. . "Now they say Don't call us we'll call you if you something we need we'll get in touch with you" . Taj from "Like Never Before" CD FFFFF

Hello FEF, the SIL rice has been flooded out the last two years, this banana grew out

by the old that sat in water for 3 weeks+. In one of the pic's you can see the cement

path, the water was over that 10 days. This 12 from Phi Mai

There is 2 other also coming up on their own.

This one stock of bananas was a lucky, they counted the number of fruit to get the

number for the u/g lottery.

The last pic is from the (3 days a week) by the side of the tracks market 5Km out

of downtown Korat. Bananas B.15 and fish B.20, from the next village over.

"She's been cheatingon you, while you've been cheating on her".

Can't get Taj out of my head.

rice555

Well Hot Dog right on and left off you ol' Issan Aussie kind of guy. I've got it again and ain't letting go. I remember the gibberish that I got the first time I tried to "win zip"??! whatever to get this off the internet. recently i was able to link up and get it and then somejhow managed to lose it before printing it. I then went back today a bit before 4am when you came on-line and out popped the "win zip" gibberish again when i tried to accessx the doc's from ACT with no luck and then Bingo bring up Thaivisa and here it is in all 45 pages of its glory being copied onto real, hold in your hand, made from thai Eucalyptus tree, hard white paper. Got to love it it. Timing, Timing timing. It's everything. That reminds me of a story............ oh no not again!

A yukka yukka and say hey old Nickles in a Bunch Ricer guy. "Like Never Before" Taj's album about a half dozen years after you saw him may be one of the greatest albums ever made. the song "Don't Call Us" could be the anthem of organic farmers. That album with Richie Havens "Simple Things" took me around the world nearly a half a dozen times or so in the mid to late 80's and early 90's (and a few others surely). Two mega classics that I think few folks have ever really heard. Wall to wall every song a super-hit and a nice diddly "Squat Dat Rabbit", with no Bo, from Taj that just make you shore to not take it all too seriously all the time. I think he is still out Hawaii way. Maybe try to run him down in the next couple of months. Common Ground is still in the semi-new location near California and ECR. I think the first store was over on Alma between California and University. Boom Baby the brain cells are all gone but i just got a flash of where you saw him. I was thinking maybe Antonio's Nut House but it was the big supermarket turned night club. Was it called the Keystone ? I remember Jerry Jeff Walker kickin out the walls there once. Tons of folks had em kickin their heels at that place before the punks ended up screwing it up eventually but still a really good long run in the heart and soul rock. From the 60's with the Dead the then Warlocks unplugging my pinball machine before Little league practice at I think AMaggos Pizza Parlor in Menlo Park just a few doors from where Jerry garcia was teaching guitar at Guitars Unlimited. Santana down the road at Sequoia High in Redwood City getting his garage band together. Pig and Janis in and around East palo Alto and menlo Park with Kesey holding the jester court around Cassidy and Stanford and La Honda and Neil Young up on his Sugar mountain. MA high grads stevie Nicks and Linsey Buckingham made the good move to team up with Mick Fleetwood and they've never looked back and Sly Stone and all kinds of folks rolling through or living it for a bit of a good run. Things had gone plenty sideways and inside out before the end of the seventies and Taj coming through town again. Man the free shows that guy played in the early days. i still thinks he gives 10% of all his gigs to charity a too cool guy and big time fisherman. Dr. Treelove was working with McClenehan's Tree Surgeons back in the very early 70's jsut after i had so will have to ask him in a few days if he ever made it over to the Keystone. Wow late 70's on the San Francisco Bay Area Peninsula now That reminds me of a story or two.... There I was On a great big red machine 4 on the floor a huge body long V-12 Flat-head open cab roaster 1949 Seagraves. That was a real pumping machine for the Menlo Park Fire Dept. I think we ended up giving it to the Puerto Vallarta Fire Dept as some crazies from there drove it down and donated it to them. Ramrod the dead late president of the Dead had one on his farm in Petaluma...... uhh oh I just read my last line and I guess it is time to stop telling stories as it borders on the absurdity of reality or something semi sort of like that ...ya know.

So hey Nickles where did you go to high school? Common ground was really the heart of the Organic Movement on the west coast. It's good to see that they are still surviving in this electronic world. IN ABOUT 24 HOURS i'LL BE STARTING THE 24 HOUR JOURNEY to get over there and I'm definitely going to run down Dr Treelove so we can share some lies. Where is your farm? Five Five Five and Fords Forever and Aussies from Issan too

I may need to get some in the future and would like to get an idea about costs and previous experiences. thanks in advance.FF

Hey Baba bub. Yes. Many places, Anyway you want. Are those the answers you want. There are many varities of greens that are grown here and really if you want specific types of mustard and chard you would probaly be better off buying these by mail from your home country though obviously it will increase your cost. Do as many do here and have friends or acquaintances who are coming bring them in and then delivery or mail from inside Thailand as a bunch of foreign correspondeces will be stolen from the mail system depending on where you live. Go to your local feed stores or bigger nurseries if you wnat to plant immediately and look at the photos of the Asian greens and see if something looks like you what you might want to try and in less than a month you can be trying some very similar or pleasantly different types. My favorite way to eat is any way they are brought to me. Greens mashed with potatoes is an amazing world wide favorite (or at least I've seen it it Croatia, Italy, Kenya, California and even Burriram at least at our house). My favorite with the chard is in small raviolis with a lot of fresh thyme a tiny bit of egg a dusting of parmesan and romano and barely even a sniff of pork). Greens are essential to minnestrone Genovese, never ever use stalky cabbage types, this is the type of soup that is green not red and has a strong basil base. I'm hungry so that's all got to go. Frying and Fixing Food on a Ford Forever

I remember the article. I just can't remember what was in it?! yukka yuk yuk. That reminds me of the story oif the old golfer who got teamed up with three hot young guns at the first tee. The starter assured the kids that the guy was decent enough at getting the ball around the course and wouldn't slow them downand though he was really old he had the eyes of an eagle. Well one kid wasn't too keen on having the old fart having to join them and he let loose with a huge and angry swing nearly out of his shoes. He sliced it way right and everybody lost sight of it but the old man. "I see it. I see it ! ". With that he had a new friend as thekid who hit it was very happy to have the old guy playing and walking next to him in that first fairway. He said "Hey old man your not a bad golfer and you've got mighty good eyesight" . "Nearly perfect" said ther old man. A few yards further up the fairway the kid asks where is my ball. The old man looks him in the eye, and then holds the look for a few more seconds, smiles a nice gentle smile and says, "I forget".

I do remember there were some mighty big holes in one of the articles in regards to how everyone needs to give the farmers something for nothing to make it work. Well organic farming is very much like everything else I've seemed to do in my life as far as work (for money art or pleasure) and that is there never seems to be enough hours in the day. I have never found it easy to be successful (happy?) by putting in eight hour days. There always seems to be a 32 o r 38 hour days as the rains are coming any day and the pumps need to be moved pipe picked up hose put down or something that needs mending now as it did for the last two months but now is non-functional and and and. Anyhow 4am to dark usually gets a start getting a lot of what needs to be done.

Yeah it is really tough to write about something you don't live or immerse yourself in, especially farming on any type of subsistence level. Education, or lack of, (not the availability, the use of) is obviously a huge huge factor in the Thai rural system and it is an extremely dificult dilemma with the current mindset. i think examples are the easiest way to teach, but unfortunately so, it is also the least productive in the respect that so very few folks get a chance to observe and benefit from it by seeing the side by side difference in an organic and non-organic plots.

I could think of millions of things that local farmers could be "given" and the things they have been given but without the knowledge, examples and education it can be just dust in the wind. Sure take 40 farmers 20 rai each and give them one new (old rebuilt) Ford 6600 and one (ideally two) competent operators (out of the 40 farmers?) an adjustable 18 disc. a box scraper, dozer blade and a Howard rotavator. When you have spent the time and diesel to remove probably 80 to 90% of the small plots with their levees so the land can be properly leveled into large plots. The cost of planting the 20 rai plots is well under five thousand baht (excluding seed, including fuel and all maintenance costs of the tractor,and realistically also the tractor and equipment depreciation). The cost of the same using the old traditional methods starts to get towards 100,000 baht. Why so cheap to plant using sustainable organic methods and a tractor? Because twice a year , if you are lucky, you will be able to put in a cover crop of say, Pah Teung, sun hemp beans (fifty kilos "given" free to each farmer by the govt) and be able to enrich your soil with this atmospheric nitrogen fixing legume and all its green organic matter that you will disc into the soil as it starts to flower. the process of doing this once or twice allows you to enrich the soil and the discing and the shading cover of the crop controls many types of weeds. This process usually will leave the soil nearly ready to accept the rice as a viable seed bed. How do you get 40 farmers in Thailand or anywhere to cordinate operate integrate assimilate, get their hogs to mate and be with their mates and make this happen is another story. The process is very acheiveable on paper and theory but.....

I also believe they talked of how the very small farmer (my previous diatribe was about big farmers 20 rai is a big piece here for the majority of Thai farmers) just couldn't even get near organic farming as it took too much money. I think it is actually just the opposite the least amount of money and property you have the more that it is essential that you use sustainable and organic methods to be able to optimize your returns. I'm typed out and physically a bit of a broken mess so will take off some time in the grease and dirt as required, so may be able to put in a bit more input to this and other topics in this forum as the alternative.

The key to organic and really most farming is going to be the infrastructure to be able to get rid of all the majopr costs of the middle-man money stealers. Even more so for the nascent organic folks is the actual development of a market and consistent buyers available for the seasonal and also all year round crops. If and when the farmers know they have an established semi-profitable source to sell their crops only then will you find a few folks that will want to change their old dog ways and make the leap to organic.

Yeah it would be great if the govt would "give" the farmers more of lots of things. If we could take just the "corruption tea money cut " from all the tablet computers that are going to bought for the school kids and invested that money in about 200 guys like Waters Edge and put them loose roaming the highs and lows of thai farming as field advisors without any ties to the corrupt govt sdystems the farmers would readily benefit from "give aways" like that but its much more beneficial to the "givers" to give everybody a fish that they can eat today than giving them a hook and a line and showing them wehere they can find some bait. Like Taj Mahal said "Many fish bites if you gots some good bait, I'm a goin' fishin' yes I'm goin' fishin' and baby's goin' fishin' too" Hot Dog Fords Forever Fishin'

Hi ForeverFord,

I'm in Khon Kaen and also have several different types of bananas (sorry I don't know the names) including a dwarf variety only about 1m high (but normal sized fruit), a tall variety about 5 metres high, a commercial chiquita type about 3 - 4 metres high, the common nam wah variety, and so on. And they all give fruit without much care. I do trim off the older leaves with the leaf spot disease to reduce infection of the newer leaves. I also chop out some of the suckers sometimes to thin the numbers of stalks (it's best to have only three stalks (of different ages) per plant at a time - a grandmother, mother and daughter - to avoid overcrowding and to maintain a steady succession of bunches.

The nam wah types (the short stubby/chubby bananas, commonly seen everywhere in Thailand) are generally tough plants and the fruit can be eaten fresh or cooked.

I wonder if you have some sort of soil problem - perhaps nematodes (eelworms)? Or a hard layer not far below the surface (plough pan)?

JB.

Well ol' Two Wheeler in the Trees thanks for the reply and i can't figure it much. The trees are extremely healthy looking and i think the only major type of concern may be towards half of them getting a bit too much water but in general good virgin soil that gets occasional organic amendments.The trees we bought went in individually and we never did pull out most of the suckers originally but will try some by being a bit more fastidious thinning and transplanting very early .That could be an issue especially with the taller (over 5 meter) stuff as the suckers can get a bit out of hand. I'm going to search the local nurseries for nothing but local nam wah as it is what I really prefer. I think I'll head towards Chumpon and try a few of their massive varieties that produce dozens of dozens. Yoou've inspired me to get much much more agressive towwards them; sometimes it's difficult to get Thai and even anyone to aggressively prune plants. we're looking to get hundreds if not thousands going but won't even think about doing more than experimental stuff at the nursery and on site until we get flowering at some sort of regular basis on one or two or more different varieties. Choke Dee Flaling on a Ford Forever

FEF,

Dont know why I didnt think of this before. Stop in at Fruity's place next time and get some from Suphin. Theirs are great eating, we have some in the ground around the pig sty with some local ones we transplanted as well. No flowers or fruit yet on mine but they look pretty good so far. Got plenty of Culms already on the first lot. Our amazing N source has them jumping out of the ground.

Isaan Aussie

Well you ol' Hog Daddy good idea and maybe will take her away for a lunch at our spot down the road or even into the big city if we both can coordibnate a little business with pleasure. Obviously half of the organic movement is about try to set up some kind of seed banks to continue to propagate some older varities that are good asnd consistent producers. I would think bananas would be an easy one but have got Diddly (without Bo) in response on this site. Sure iI can buy tons from assorted nuseries but as in the past that hasn't givien me success and i would prefer local successful "homegrown varieties like Fruity's and others so this is a start and I'll get in touch with Supeen. Coirn seed arrived and ready to plant. Hope you keep getting the rain. We haven't had any real heavy stuff inover 5 weeks now and lost a lot of the Takuu trees we planted, well over fifty per cent. Sun Hemp, pah teung is over head high interplante with the trees and nowhere even near two monthw old so won't green manure it and will be harvesting for seed as the last harvest won't give us aenough to multiple plant the 50 or so rai that will need it. Can believe August is around the corner. Well you sold nearly 4 dozen hogs a few days ago good luck with the next few dozen and litters of a dozen thereafter appears like a reasonable estimate so have fun being knee deep in the little squealers. that landrace boar may be a bit of a horny toad but he sure is beautiful. A nice cross with him and ayour durocs may end up getting you the ultimate boar someday. Can't blame the young monster from wanting to show you he's ready to "work" and do his job can you? Fruit Fords Forver

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

Fairly close to the mark with these prices.

We charge our 10 wheelers out at 5,000B per day plus fuel, or 1.50B per tonne per kilometer on decent roads, up to 2.50B per tonne per kilometer for poor, hilly roads.

18 wheeler goes for around 11,000B per day plus fuel, weight per kilometer prices the roughly the same.

Hey there guy with the Sounds. As W E said verification of #'s will allow people to reference this for a long time and have a rough idea of what trucking should be in and around their area. thanks also for the off road or semi-off-road quotes. If i may I would like to know the reason for the eighteen wheeler (sometimes I'm really slow on figuring things) costing more than two 10 wheelers. Obviously the ten wheelers would be more versatile in a situation of multiple runs where you can dump and go (maybe like sugar cane or ferilizwer or earth). Are the ten wheelers dump beds? If not then I can see certain advantages to a eighteen wheeler. Forever Figuring Finances with a Ford

PS Where are you located?

18 wheeler is more suited to longer distance travelling, it actually uses a little less fuel than two 10 wheelers for the same distance. I guess we charge slightly more for it because of initial outlay, larger insurance premiums, and trailer maintenance costs. We have both trailer, for moving machinery, and dump versions. 18 wheelers are not really suitable for rough off-road work, whereas 10 wheelers will go practically anywhere, and are small enough to maneuver in those tight country 4m wide sois.

Horses for courses.

Hey there again Man with the Sounds

Thanks for the info. Where are you located? I'll be needing trucks after rice season. Fill em Up Fords Forever

I am having very poor luck to get producing bananas even after introducing varieties from Kaesetsart Ag Fair. All have been getting good water and some more fertilizer (small amounts of EM, Compost and manures but nothing excessive) than others and some none at all but all in good earth. Lots of growth but barely any flowering or fruit. Does anyone have names of varieties or places where they have bought good producing stock. I am open to buy from anywhere from Chumpon to Si Sa ket. Thanks our farm is in Burriram near Surin Border. Fruitless with a Ford Forever

Hi I'm living between Udon Thani and Nong Khai and have many banana trees now growing and bearing fruit. Most of these trees just grew themselves from the soil that was brought in for fill about 3 years ago. We have different types of which I don't have the names for. We even have the larger sweeter bananas like Chiquitos which grow from a really small banana tree which have to be propped up when bearing fruit. They get plenty of water and I don't even fertilize them so I think it's the soil. On the other hand we planted bananas in the rice field which rarely gets water and they hardly grow at all. Some of these trees are very tall and the bananas are hard to get even with a step-ladder. My wife now cuts the green bananas, puts them in some kind of liquid,,fries them in oil,puts sugar on them and puts them into the sun to dry. Then she bags them and sells them to a local store. They never seem to get enough as they keep asking for more all the time. We also cut down the tree after bearing fruit and the suckers keep on coming up. It must be the soil and the large amount of water we give them. We didn't plan to grow bananas as most of them just started growing themselves and we'd dig up the suckers and replant them for use as shade trees.

well done for you I wish I could find some of that magic dirt out my way. FF

Thanks all. I'm getting slower and slower by the day and probably due to ending up on my head everytime I crashed. Lee Trevino was hit twice by lightning actually. I was thinking of using a rod that was an image of him (a yuk a yukka). Again thanks for the input. The rod is on top of the peak of the metal roof at the edge of the ridge not in the middle (I don't think that will make any difference) and then has the grounding wire running down the outside of the structure to a large copper grounding rod pounded into the ground. That part seems to be standard installation (I assume) from the reading I've been doing. I guess one of my big concerns is the fact that the entire structure is iron pipe and it just seems to me the perfect conduit for the lightning but I guess the many communication and satelite towers here in the LOS have the same issues and must use a similar system for lightning.

The reason for a second rod would be to put it on a remote single pole about 20 meters away from the structure and ideally about 5 meters or so higher such that it would attract any hits and maybe keep them from even hitting the structure with the other rod on it. A bit of expense but I may not be able to get any Thai family to occupy the building otherwise as my s-i-law won't even use her cell phone in the wood house when it is storming outside. Sometimes maybe ignorance is bliss. Again thanks to all who responded as it appears that this forum has really gone quiet in regards to input from the masses. I can't believe that a previous request for some info on bananas only solicited one response but such it is. FF

I have put up a tank tower with galvanized Pipe. It is about ten meters high (3 meters square) and have also put on a lightning rod on the roof. i really don't have much of an idea how the darn things work. I am going to enclose the tower in wood to create a two story house. Will the lightning rod be sufficient to keep the place safe or should I put up another lightning rod on maybe a cement post slightly away from the structure that is a few meters higher than the structure to hopefully have the hits get it instead of the one on the structure ideally. I've thought of the Lee Trevino method of putting my one iron on the top of the tower as we remember his famous quote "Heck just hold up a one iron in a storm to protect you from lightning because even god can't hit a one iron". Clueless on a Ford Forever

You know what would be really cool is if you could go through all our previous posts. Start with the "pinned" ones that are the first to show on the list when you get into this forum section and get all this info organized by make model and year and price and present it to the farmers heere who given their time to write it all done once or twice before to try to help out new interested folks that think they might want to get into some aspect of Agriculture. Do just a bit of this and it would be a great help for many,me include as i am interested in a Thresher and maybe it can eventually spin off to that . I think you'll find most of the info is available and then you can start to be able to ask maybe more specific queestions. Finding Farming Files on a Ford Forever

For me, the best tasting banana is the nam wah. Extremely common variety that we never have any trouble growing in Isan.

Thanks fopr the reply Old Swinger Guy.

I'll ask my wife if she recognizes this variety. Hoiw many rings of bananas do they produce on the average. Quantity at this point is really the last of my concerns I'm looking for a solid all the time producer that mature relatively rapidlly (none of this one plus plus year thing I'm seeing). How many trees do you have and how often do they flower and how tall are they and what kind of irrigation do you use, if any? and... and .....and thanks there Swinger Man. Future Flowering on a Ford Forever

Hi there,

to introduce myself: I am selling a product called SUPERGREEN. 100 % organic (made of Dolomite, a kind of Limestone), in US and EUR approved for usage in organic farming. The product is milled in a High Tech mill so the particles are in a size of 6 micron in average.

We tested the product since 1 year in Thailand and got unbelievable results. SUPERGREEN is diluted in water and sprayed on to the leaves, it is a socalled foliar fertilizer. The particles are so small that they can enter the leaves trough the stomata (pores). Within the leaf, the CaC)3 splits into CO2 and CaO. C)2 is together with sunlight the motor of photosynthesis.

Anyway, I would like to send you some samples to be tested at banana trees. Honestly, we did not test the product at bananas. Usualle, plants react about 7 days after spraying. Horticultural plants start to get blossoms within about 14 days. So, if your banana tree does not get blossoms, SUPERGREEN might help.

Attached you find the detailed description of the product. If you want to test it (it is 100 % NON HAZARDOUS), please send me your name and address.

Have a nice sunday

Werner Kraeutler

MEGAGROW Co. Ltd.,

Nonthaburi

Thailand

You can call me anytime: 089 51 76 646

Hi Krauti

YOu know me differently than Forever Ford but my wife Rungnapa and the family here in Lavia, Buri Ram have been spraying the rice farms with Supergreen we bought a few months back and in the droughty farms the word is that the rice is looking good. We had nearly 30 days of drought (after almost a month non-stop of torrentuial downpours) so had three applications on one farm (Irrigated) and two applications on the others.

We can set up controls and start to spray suckers off the same cut down mother banana tree (maybe four off of one chopped down mother) spraying two and wrapping the others in plastic sheating to protect from over-spray and put them on a two week application and see what the results give us. They have been sprayed before but maybve only once just not sure. Definitely easy application. The transplants to the main farm will be much much easier to run controls and maybe I'll try 15% without the Supergreen. I'll keep you updated. Foilar Feeding on a Ford Forever

Really with raised beds you are looking at problems creating sides (wood or cement) unless you are extremely confined for space and soils. One of the great benefits of raise beds is the increased amount of planting area you get by using this method. When you create a raised bed on an area that is say 3 meters long by one meter wide you are planting on 3 square meters of earth. If you didn't raise the beds (or raise beds with sides of cement or wood) you could plant on that area and for example say with your spacing you are able to plant 30 heads of lettuce in perfect spacing. By raising the bed above ground and putting a nice tapering slope tfrom the top of your bed to the border sides Think of a plastic pipe of 1.5 meters in length laying across the width of your bed so 25 cm is sticking outside of your one meter wide bed on each side. If you stuck each end in the ground on the border (where your cement or pieces of wood would be to raise the bed) of your bed and created an arc (think McDonald Hamburger arches flatenned out somewhat) that would create an arc somewhat similar to what you are trying to get when you make raised beds. So now instead of having 3 square meters of soil to plant your lettuce on, you have 4.5 square meters (1.5 meter arc by 3 meters long) and maybe the ability to put hypothetically 45 heads on the same plot of earth.

You will get a lot of bugs where you create your wooden or cement sides and also inconsistent moisture contents due to the enclosure. Your beds should be wide enough that you can easily work the center of your bed from either side. Anything over 6 feet wide usually is too wide to be able to comfortably cultibvate the center of the bed by hand. Watering is critical to maintaining good tilth as anykind of flooding or puddling of water on a flat raised bed (ONE WITH SIDES) WILL CAUSE UNDUE COPMPACTion. a watering can with a fine spray head or a fine spray sprinkler, usually hand held for small plots is the preferred method of watering,. try to recreate light rain. Choke Dee FF

thanks for your replys i was out there yesterday ginnin around and the easy answer was right there rather than pumping anywhere im going to just put a header tank approx 1.5 above the height of the final destination whicth is about 11.5 meters in total heigh tand then gravity feed from there on thanks for the pointers about drippers your dead right filtration is going to be the key thats the next mission that and finding good supplier of drip fittings and drip line you got to love it

Howdy there Man with Many Murris good luck with the bamboozles. A good trick for dripping and filtering is to be able to not draw your water from the bottom of the tanks if you can manage. Ideally, if you have a sufficient amount of water and the ability to replenish your tanks system without a big drawdown of your water, you would want to have your out-flow water line to your series of filters (coarse to fine) coming from the middle of the side of your tank not from the bottom. You should have this out-flow pipe connected to another outflow pipe that is almost on the very bottom of the tank but you should be able to keep the bottom pipe turned off with a valve and hopefully not have to turn on the bottom valve unless extreme lack of water or some other issue causes your tanks to get lower than half full where4 you have your out-flow pipe. Your water should be drawn always from the middle of your tank where no sediment and deposit will accumulate. Another outflow line, a valve and an open butt of piper should be at the very bottom of the side of the tank and you can open that occasionally to try to flush the accumulated deposits off the bottom of your tank. I hope what i have witten is a bit clearer than the bottom of your tank is going to be but will draw it up for you if need be and mail it off to you if you need. Choke Dee Faming Fords Forever

We are having what I feel are very poor results with our banana crops around the homestead in Buriram. We have about 40-50 or so main trees (hundreds of trees growing at any time) growing and the crops are few and far between. They are grown in an area that has some places that have really not not been ammended much but is still basically good quality soil that has not been chem'd or depleted or used much before and has good structure and tilth. Half is irrigated by bath and wash water (semi-organic bio-degradeable soaps used in the wash water) the other (same plot on a slight slope) with well and rain water.

I had bananas in Mexico grown in almost the same situation and quantity and had bananas in all stages of harvest all the time. Here it is a rarity to see a bloom and setting of good fruit. Fruit is few and far between. We are in the process of removing many of the trees (mostly the cooking varieties) and transplanting the few that have given us some decent crops. I have introduced varieties that we purchased from the Ag Fair at Kasetsart University and they have grown enormously and quickly but after reaching close to 6 meters high with trunks well over 30 cm in diameter they just yellow up and die of old age not even a trace of flowering. We chopped them all down and let the abundant suckers (big trees now themselves) grow and only one has finally produced what looks like a nice bunch of fruit that may give us well over a hundred bananas. That is only one of the "best" nursery varieties that has even produced in the last almost two years.

Some get a lot of water all the time and some get less but they all grow well and look good in shape and color. We have manured and composted in some areas but not excessively by any means and not much luck. With the quantity of trees I would expect normally to have flowering on a weekly basis. It is getting very close to removing almost all of them but a couple and introducing all new varieties and starting over. I expected that we should have been able to have nearly at least a few hundred if not nearly a half a thousand at this point for transplant and expandsion in and around the various farms but with nothing worth transplanting so far i haven't wasted our time or money.

Does anybody out there have a name of any any good eating (non-cooking) varieties that would be easily found amongst the nurseries that produce good bananas here in our area of Issan. I don't think it wopuld be wise to go to Chumpon (banaana capital of Thailand) to purchase there since different varities might do better there than here in Issan.

Peurto Limon was the name of the bananas that did the trick for me in Mexico. geat producers of under a hundred small to medium sized bananas on a tree not much over 4 meters high at the most with good shelf life strong skins and superb peachy sweet flavor. A superb quality for eating and baking. Hopefully there is a banana mana or womana out there that can clue me in to the banaana secrets of issan. Clueless in Lavia on a Ford Forever

Thought I'd refresh this old topic as I think the farmers are getting older than the topic and too busy to kick in a few (yep even for me I think this will be a short one) lines about what is going on. I'm looking fior fish emulsion in lieu of chicken manure at the moment for my nitrogen fixes but have gotten no responses. The rice is in after way too much early rain (la nina effect after last years disasterous el nino) over a short period of time. Now we are in the grip of a one month no rain drought. we had to do a bit of hand planting in lieu of our preferred broadcast (scatter) seeding because of so much water in one farm. This year we are using two new products. A all in one (no nitrogen) sort of, "Beyond Organic" liguid for topical spraying and a new nano-calcium powder "Supergreen" for foilar application also. So these have ben incorporated along with the compost, animal manures, EM, bio-char and cover crops of sun hemp (pah teung) along with the elimination of the plough and only using the disc and rotovator has really shown a great improvement in the structure and tilth of the soil. No new lakes or klongs have been built this year as they were added to the list of future projects but is still very high on the list. the new adapter to create an angle Dozer blade configurtation with the front blade on the Ford has paid for itself about a thousand times over already but still haven't got the levee up to two meters all the way aroungd the farm but getting close and that will eventually be filled and occupied by a lot of lemon grass, galanga and cilantro along with hunfdreds of trees. Right now it looks like we'll be putting some sweet corn ontop these levees that will be above the flood plain when it gets really wet. Neighbors have been complete idiots as they want to come 3-5 meters onto our property and claim half the leveeas theirs as they have come and removed all our boundary cement monuments. goofy mean ugklly people that are very foolish and lazy and make s a real pain in the butter to try to do something new and good but they are clueless and cause a lot of grief and trouble. to the ignorant keep cleaning behind your ears as you always have your head in the ground. Hoping for rain today to make life easier. Two farms don't have any irrigation so no alternative. Lakes and klongs on main farm have both been stocked with catfish so should get a good harvest at the end of rice season but now the water has been used to supplement the rice on the main farm. A good crop is going there as we have three different planting times two of which were hand planted transplants. Nothing is waist high yet but trying to be. a big truckful of manure would be nice but managed two crops of sun hemp as a cover this year along with all the straw so will go a bit of cheap charlie and maybe not bring in a ten wheeler and see what we get. I really hope this "Supergreen' lives up to its test results but actually with no controls this year (just threw the dice and logistics made us go in 100% with the new amenmdments on all of the crop) we won't know the true effects of the new fertilizers so hoopefully next year we can do it a bit more scientifically to check on growth and yield and all results. So i said it would be a short one and maybe it is but the Ford has remained a real workhorse and though getting a bit worn still not worn out, operator maybe moreso, such it is and seems to always be. thanks for all the help from those who contribute here, we definitely miss jahndta but waters edge and Issan Aussie help pick up the slack from his fantastic contributions. Let it rain. Forever Ford

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

Fairly close to the mark with these prices.

We charge our 10 wheelers out at 5,000B per day plus fuel, or 1.50B per tonne per kilometer on decent roads, up to 2.50B per tonne per kilometer for poor, hilly roads.

18 wheeler goes for around 11,000B per day plus fuel, weight per kilometer prices the roughly the same.

Hey there guy with the Sounds. As W E said verification of #'s will allow people to reference this for a long time and have a rough idea of what trucking should be in and around their area. thanks also for the off road or semi-off-road quotes. If i may I would like to know the reason for the eighteen wheeler (sometimes I'm really slow on figuring things) costing more than two 10 wheelers. Obviously the ten wheelers would be more versatile in a situation of multiple runs where you can dump and go (maybe like sugar cane or ferilizwer or earth). Are the ten wheelers dump beds? If not then I can see certain advantages to a eighteen wheeler. Forever Figuring Finances with a Ford

PS Where are you located?

Great Story. Must add that to my list of uses for fish emulsion.

Why you boon swaggalin no giver taker kind of rapscallion , where you hiding da goods? If you use it where do you get it? Hmmh? I could use a half of a fifty-five Chevy full. In the land of intestine eating folks I thought it might be an issue to find this as every nano bit of fish is consumed here or also used for fish and frog food. Still searchin'. Forever Finding Fish Fertilizer on a Ford