Foreverford

Swiftlet life span 10 to 14yrs. It is very new industry in thailand as compare to malaysia and indonesia. Unfortunately, the failure rate is very high i.e. 80%. As you aware that, these bird is free in and out of your bird house (BH), therefore, the external and internal design is very very important. One its successful, u may just sit back and wait for the "white gold to grow". Bird nest farming (commercially) started since about 10 to 12yrs ago. Malaysia 30yrs and indonesia 3rd generation. major supply is indonesia 80%, thailand 10%, malaysia 8% and 2% others. anyway, should anyone need further or more detail information about bird nest farming, please do not hesitate to contact me at <snip>

average per kg 38000 to 42000baht/kg for UNPROCESSED BIRD NEST. There are 3 types of bird species that make nest from saliva. 1st is saliva + grass, 2nd is saliva + feather and 3rd saliva only (supreme quality).

Where is your farm located?

So that converts to about 15 to 20 baht per Kg with husk right? and a typical farm I have read ranges from 350 to 450 kgs per Rai depending on land, techniques used and conditions etc?

Bingo, but good sustainable methods and reasonable weather should produce more. Plenty spend plenty of bucks on chems and get less than what you quote even on average

everything and almost everything should do alright. The King has projects throughout the country and you can now find herbs very well established and growing in pots. Truly much cheaper than the cost of the fresh cut herbs available in the farang supermarkets. The shop that I just bought some rosemary and thyme potted plants is called The Royal Project Shop and they sell many of the food and herb products from his programs., Very mature specimens were about 50 baht each, ridiculously cheap as the 15 baht bags of cut herbs was much less than 1/3 of total amount of foilage on the live plants. I bought mine in Hua Hin but I'm sure there are many of the Royal Project Shops around Bangkok.

With the tomatoes I would recommend at least one of them being a cherry tomatoe variety to get you fast results and decent yields. Your yields will be reduced by the amount of full sunlight you won't get onto your porch. Full sun almost all day AND some protection from the rain (this time of year) and good drainage is the best for tomatoes. Remember it never hurts to try. There is a thread in here that has people saying what western veggies and herbs people have been successful growing here in Thailand. Choke Dee Ford Tractors on Sukhumvit Forever

Hi joker7

Yes, That's what I'm saying, the figures are correct.

It seems cheap, but still relatively expensive to even larger scale transport.

If you want to doubt your senses,

look at the CSX Railroad ad

They move a ton of freight 423 miles on one gallon of fuel.

For a short haul, you do have load & unload time,

but in that extra time the truck isn't burning fuel.

Thailand truckers typically don't consider parked time very expensive.

If someone is offering to haul your Sweet Corn 30 km for B1,000 / MT

You could do better.

B1000 / 30 => B33 / km MT

I could put a ton on my pickup truck,

drive slowly and and spend one hour on the road

I'd burn 5.5 liters of diesel => B200?

It might take me half an hour to load then unload, so I'm two hours per load

I like to figure equivalent fuel cost as vehicle cost,

so let's deduct another B200 for the wear and tear on my truck

I can turn 4 loads in an 8 hour day, so I have B2,400 in my pocket at day's end.

In addition to paying off my new truck

If I want to do a 16 hour day, B4,800

A pickup truck is the worst case.

If I buy a decent 6 wheel, then I can haul maybe 5 tons per load.

If I have a bigger truck, then my time becomes a smaller part of the expense.

Right now Cassava chips are coming from Kamphaeng Phet to Mae Sot,

and the shipper is paying B350 / ton on maybe a 200 km haul.

Not exactly sure the distance...but if 200 is near correct, that's B1.75 / km MT

The shipper is complaining at the high expense

It could be that the trucks can't get a full 30 ton load on as chips are not dense.

The 80 km over Tak mountain highway is a bear.

200 km is a relatively short haul.

As always you can't make it simpler and if you aren't the owner operator of your own equipment here in Thailand you are looking for big trouble. Always hire out if you can (well maybe not always if you are tal,king 1000 baht a ton for a short haul as is obvious from your #'s). Trucking costs are unbelieveable low here I have found especially if you can find a return haul. when the rails are brought above 1930's standard then another new door will open. PS WE I got lucky and got the pond fixed for free but thanks for your response on the betonite. Again it was a trucking decision that was the crux to that issue. choke dee Keep On Trucking on a Ford Forever

I wish I could send you ours. In 6 weeks in our area of Ranong we have had less than 10 days of rubber tapping in 6 weeks

Been there a few times and have never seen it without rain coming down. Frequently Falling Fluid with Fords Forever

Anyone know of a source of Fish Emulsion. posted this on the organic forum and hope someone will be able to give me a source. One gallon jugs would be fine and larger would be better. Ah fish emulsion .... I remeber one fFourth of July celebration when a bunch of teenagers picjked on us little kids on the block and just plastered us with eggs as they drove up too our party in a cherry 55 chevy two door. Well we organized the neiborhood and set up our scouts and plans and got all the little kids in place and sure enough about a couple hours later our outward scouts on the corner of the road spotted them coming down the main drag. The word went out and everybody got in their places. Gee did something go wrong? As they drove up there were all the young ones running around screaming in total fear as these punks just smiled jumped out of the car and again started to pummel them with eggs. oops I forgot we did have one guy across the street hiding in the bushes and he just managed to have an "Arbor Road" special 5 gallon bucket with a special blend of one half gallon fish emulsion to 2 gallons of water. When the driver jumped out and ran around to the other side of the car to start throwing eggs he couldn't have made it easier as he left his door open. we had a 100% direct hit on the inside of his car and we just never managed to see that car or any more eggs for all the years that I can remember after that. though we did prepare for it for a few years thereafter. Now you could grow some maize in that car that's for sure. thanks foir any help. Fabulous Fouth Fragrant Fifty Five Fools and Fords Forever

Hey all my chicken manure is gone and need to try to find a way to fertilize corn that I want to grow with the rice crop. Has anyone been able to locate fish emulsion here in Thailand and been able to buy in any bulk quatities (one gallon is okay). What are your prices and location. thanks Fords Fish and Farms Forever

Maybe you need to look at an alternative crop or a shorter season variety of rice.

Here in phuphaman (khon kaen) we average 55-60 inches a year with opening rains at songkran and falling through to middle of october with little rain after till april again.

Out of interest what would your annual rainfall be?

Anyhow hope the rain comes soon for your area and everyone gets a crop in..

I've got a better idea take your next crop put it in your pleasure boat or fishing boat and take it into a big body of water and sink it then never fish or farm again and you'll be miles ajhead. we got everything in last year as was just able to survive the drought because of a new water retention irrigation system I started to get together everybody eklse saw their crops dry up and ended up having to plant and incur all the same costs sgaisn. The rains finally fell and everybody's crop flourished....... of course the floods came just shortly before harvest and everything was under nearly two meters of water somehow our crop survived but nearly all the other people lost it all again. Our yield was so pitifully low that I didn't eeven weigh it in one of the farms. Our very late planted crop managed to survive better and produce better (on higher ground). this year we were flooded out so we couldn't plant anywhere near the royal planting day (May 13th?). In Si sa ket they haven't had any rain to speak of so far this year so who knows when to plant. We got sstuck having to plant a bunch by hand and once that happens you start to kiss your profits goodbye. Same as last year as we had do a lot of harvesting by hand and good bye profits. Last year an el nino meaning no rain this year is an el nina meaning lots of rain and boy did we have it at the Burriram Surin border now over a month and not a drop and things getting real sticky on the non-irrigated plots. There just is no profgit in hand planting unless you are in the specialty market or only growing for home use. If you don't hand plant then sow the crops early get rid of you leveesa and level the plots and if you lose a crop just disc it up and plant again only problem is the torrential rains that will keep you out of your pl;ot and then make it impossible to scatter your seed after a couple days of downpours. No easy solution to pollution or timing in dryland farming of rice. Frequently Figuring on a Ford Forever

The simple solution is to have someone camp out very nearby and very consspicuously just in case there are humans involved so you won't have a confrontation by someone turning up unexpectedly and being caught in the act. They will someone there monitoring the birds and hopefullynot bother anyone or thing. A tent a battery operated light and a campfire so everyone from a long way off knows there is a human near the coop (nothing to scare the birds though hopefully). You could have a check every couple of three hours if you thought that was necessary but really a person being there to observe no one entering the coop is all that is necessary and then youw will notice if this 60% reduction is in fact due to the birds or an outside human source. How secure is your coop to big and small and human intruders?

Remember that most replies you may get here are provbably for Hom Mali paddy which will sell at the 20,000 baht price in the new scheme if implemented. 15,000 bqaht is for non "jasmine" fragrant Hom Mali rice. I don't really think eeven 1 % of the farmers in Issan have a second or third crop and most of the rice growers here are from Issan. the millers really made a fortune last time this was done by re-selling old rice and also smuggled foreighn rice to the govt. More of the same old same old will be going on again as the govt for sure has to implement this as it is the most deeply felt issue to their main constituency in Issan and benefits all their rich cronies too. It was a fiasco last time around and we all suffered the after effects when it was gone. Foolishly not Forgetting on a Ford Forever

My experience with rosemary is that it becomes immediately bush-like growing up vertically and becoming a bush with woody base and soft new growth but definitely not a creeper. A nasty one that likes to creep and has a very invasive root structure and new sprouts from horizontal growth is mint (since you suggested a spice with the rosemary). FF

So I'm not sure of the proceedure to having a pinned subject but I agree that it is extremely critical aspect of any kind of plant care. For farmers it is very important as it is difference of putting money in the bank or having to take it out. I'm not sure who the moderator is but I think they have to be the one to pin it and then I guess others can suggest (?) to the moderator old posts to put in it or just put them in I would think. Off to the farm today so won't be on-line for a while I would imagine. Don't really know what's broke down more, me or the tractor but got to keep on keepin' on. Feet Forward Fords Forever

Out of interest how does one top bamboo about 14 foot high?

Is it OK with regular topping?

You can top or shear, but it looks hedged/matted and un-natural. If you want a more natural look, take out the tallest canes, all the way to the base and leave the shorter ones. With this approach you achieve thinning and height reduction at the same time.

If you head it (top), cut back to a lateral leaf node to avoid the ugly dead stub that will result from random shearing.

Re bamboo thinning: Visually locate the tallest canes. Follow it down to where it comes out of the clump near the ground (follow by sight or by getting hold of it and pulling, shaking, so that you know you have a hold of the tall one you want). Then cut it off just above ground level with a saw or loppers. The before and after photos below are not from the same bamboo clump or even the same species, but used to illustrate the potential of thinning. . This applies most if you are after an ornamental, artistic visual effect, especially nice if you have a species with beautiful stems like that pictured and in a location where you can see it. If you want screening for privacy/security then leave it thick and reduce by heading. I don't have pics of height reduction

Khap Khun on that one. Will do. FF

Hey dogger of the lane

Great attachment and very informative. No wonder your "personal" orrchard look so symmetrical. It got me stimulated to want to get the chain saw out and go after a monster we have at the house that should get everybody freaked out pretty good. I dropped a 40cm diameter branch going right through the center of it last year and everybody just sat gaping. of course all the bleeding, and oozing and infestation disappeared as it could start to breath (couldn't get nybody to go up and fine tune the center to get rid off all the other cross branching and muddle in the middle and got a good rash since I'm allergic to the buggers. Yep same toxin in poison oak as in mangoes especially in the skin) Amazingly, to them, we got a great crop of mangoes this year.

People used to say that you want to prune a tree so it appears to look like a nice big wine glass. I think that is what you and Doc are talking about. Don't let any branches cross thru the center of your glass. Keep all branches moving outward and upwards and make sure that the center of the tree is open with no growth on the inside so the air can move through to prevent disease and infestation.

That was a great attachment Doc don't you think? I also here they are going to close down San Quentin (I was supposed to go there, well just to play football but they offed somebody just before and so the 70's started without me in the pen. Now I've got a story abou....... nah not this time) so I would think that if they do it soon there could be some great business opportunities there for massive landscape projects can we somehow get them to try to do entirely organically?? Finding Foliar Fitness on a Ford Forever

just wondering where to purchase calcium. i just need some for my tomatoes, prevents bloosom end rot. might toss some on my trees, too.

dr., while i might have your ear. any good sites that show how to prune fruit trees, particularly mango? try and keep it simple, i'm a bit thick.....

thnx in advance.

Calcium/Boron sprays in various concentrations are available at just about any serious fertilizer store.

I use them for flowering fruit trees with good results, especially mangoes.

For mango pruning read attached,

Most other, work on similar principles for easy management and good yields.

Insure proper sunlight inside the canopy (by removing excessive growth), trim all branches where fruit will hang close to the ground, don't let the tree get too tall, remove previous fruiting growth ( after the harvest let the tree rest, than prepare for the next season.)

regards

Hey there h2o on the edge. Do you have a shredder (ooh if dere really is sanny claus he's gonna bring me one one day) (or all my dead uncles will come back to life and be rich and give me lots of bought) or do you just manage these as we do by starting to put circles of whole halves (got to love that term) around the trees. Flailing on a Ford Forever

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

So I knew the answer before. Don't think that IA figured it out in the few sentences that he described it in. He was factoring and figuring for a long long time with many other possibilities and strategies based on what would happen with the the future herd and also the potential ramifications from where and what he was actually dealing with. Volumic amounts of reasearch, re-thinking, remembering from what and where his herd had originated and been exposed. No easy bit of forensics to say the least and to see it now described in a few sentences doesn't do justice to what it took to figure it out and also be able to deal with it. Fruity you were the wizard when it came to hogs but your protege I believe is very close to your status as "hoggy emeritus".

And of course the answer all along was in v a p o r parvo. Fluently Ford Forever

Come on you guys....put us out of our misery (please)

IA has got you dialed in. Stay out of the way of the trucks and dozer till you get your land like you want it and then start from the top and condition the soil from the top down. the only thing you could maybe do is put the biochar on first then let them dump on top THEN put four more loads on top of the fill. Don't worry about where the house goes as this won't bother athing in that regards. Forget the chems you have one rai a very easy and inexpensive project to manage so by all means go organic with it as it is what you want i believe and is very easily and quickly able to be acheived on a small manageable plot such as yours. Read the post on EM in the organic pinned articles I spoke of before and you can make your own extremely inexpensively and just get out and start sprinkling it over the ground when a nice light rain has come or is actually raining gently or put it on and water it in. Have fun making earth, that's what farming really is a;ll about the seeds know qwhat to do you just need to give them the right earth to be able to do it in. Farmin and Fillin with Fords Forever

For me you do not need to fertiliser the soil, you need to condition it. A lot of people will disagree with me, but my opinion these days is to get the soil right and let it feed the plants, forget the application of fertiliser to feed plants. Most fills are very low in humus and the lack of carbon based materials leads to the soil becoming compacted. It needs to breath. The problem here is caused by excessive use of chemical fertilisers which drop the natural biology level and salts remain with most of the NPK values leeched out or trapped in a form that plants cannot use them. If you want a decent start try using loads of biochar which can be incorporated with a ripper or even a rake, or just turned under with a plough drawn behind the tractor doing the leveling. Members of this forum have reported getting a 6 wheel load of biochar for under 4,000 baht. Fully loaded the 6 wheeler I use has a capacity of about 24 cubic metres, so under 20 baht per cubic metre. As to quantity, 1 rai is 1600 sq metres. If you use 50mm of biochar coverage, you would need 80 cub.m. or 4 truck loads.

Your new soil would have better aeration, hold moisture better and have had a biological kick start. The biochar will remain in the soil and start its work as your gardens etc develop.

Isaan Aussie

The corrugated (matches the ubiquitous galvanized metal) that I used was about 2 meters long but very very weak clear to slightly green fiberglass similar to the stuff in the US but very very weak. In the US we could get it almost in 5 meter lengths. I'll be up next week and if I can find time will search some more and try to get in touch. thanks FF

Just so you're on top of things.

On of your Mexicans, a cherry type, is still going strong with all the rains.

Another one, regular type, kind of sweet, soft texture, medium sized ( I should have kept those tags ) is also still producing.

All grown without any protection in between the grapes.

This year I also tested to see if any heirlooms will produce under the open sky; only the black Russians gave a decent yield.

PS, the dates will be ready soon & the new wood burning pizza oven made excellent pies, get ready for a visit.

Regards

good on you and glad to hear it. All of those I gave you were heirlooms some dating to the 1860's (don't remember what i gave you). The plants were doing so well in all ways but all in the field went under water and really sufferred so they got yanked. I'm a bit excited to get some going under cover and see what we can do though it isn't a big area it will be a good test area. the corrugated fiberglass that i got was pretty expensive and not very strong so i need to try to find some material that is more practical and durable or something that may be able to be used on a temporary basis but not thrown away each year. So much to do and so much rain. Such it is. FFFords FFFForever

You probably could use the clear roofing material ( comes in big pieces ) to create shelter in an ELEVATED WITH GOOD DRAINAGE area.

Not expensive, very durable. We use it for skylights in rental houses, it works well.

Canopy you are the man as they say. Finally someone who is really thinking! You have got it right, no matter what you are doing about a fence make sure it is at least a meter onto your property (if you have a large plot) so you will always have legal access to work on it from the other side. I could tell stories about fences that were supposed to be on the property lines, my grandfather instilled in me when I was young about that. He talked about a newly started highrise (well many stories already built up) and the jerk owner who tried to squeeze out his neighbor for more land before he built but wouldn't sell. Eventually when the guy got high enough the old guy came to him and told him he didn't want his building on his property in this section of downtown New York in the late 1800's. the guy laughed at him and said go away I'm way inside your fence-line he agreed but told him I built my fence way inside my property line so I could on the otherside and work on it when I wanted. Something rather unheard of at that time and now, and the building had to be demolished as he woiuldn't sell him any of his land after the abuse he had recieved originally when the guy tried to force him to sell. OOpps did I say i wasn't going to tell any stories I've got more. NOOOOOOO.

OK now Can of peas here we go. Bouganvillas are extremely drought resistant and the proof is you see them growing everywhere completely unattended in old abandoned homes and plots. The more water they get the more new green growth they get and obviously water and fertilizer means even more. They start to flower prodigiously when the water is turned off and they become drought stressed, so beautiful. It's hard to say which is the best to plant for fences as far as speed of growth though it appears that the lighter pink varieties tend to grow rather fast yet are the least beautiful. In Mexico the gold was usually not as prolific and available but beautiful and that is what I used for a rear fence and it just exploded from the ground and in a short time created a massive wall and I know that now 25 years later the base has to be the size of my torso and bigger. The neighbors (bad folks) ended up using their side as a huge shady carport for many vehicles. If you use the bv's along your fence line depending how many you want to plant and now is the time to plant. I think yuou can use less wire and less posts and you will have an impenetrable border very soon with the rains this year and especially if you were to continue to water in the non-rain season. I fenced my property in mexico with old wooden posts and just three lines of barbed wire that wasn't very tight (small weak wooden posts in the desert) and then started to weave the the long braches through the wire and nobody will ever think of trying to cut through the stuff as the thorns of it are much much worse than the barbed wire. The woody cuttings root very easily in well drained soil and can make it very inexpensive to create a large border. Still I think if you were to buy in bulk from the growers I think you could get the price as low as 5 baht or less as I see them for 10 baht for a single one. As far as color, ask the growers what is the fastest growing and they should be able to steer you to them but of course I'm sure you will want to having many different ones in some areas for their scenic beauty. In the beginning anything that starts to grow outside of your fence, on either side, take the shoot and weave it into your wire. After you have established what you want then you can prune back any new growth that is heading into your property anything that is growing laterally let it grow and create a thick border. On the outside if there is a roadway or a good neighbor who doesn't wqant a beautiful flower growing on their land just prune by hand as the new growth is very soft and easy to cut and the thorns are not bad. A good old weed wacker with a metal blade will do the job in a jiffy and you don't have to get close to it. New growth is very delicate and soft wood and simple to deal with. Same goes for the top if you want to keep it at shoulder high then just go at it from both sides with the weed wacker and you can keep it well under control. Otherwise you can let it go on top and it will put up big beautiful branches for a while and then when they cascade down you can cut them then and have a nice high border that no one can see into or over. Good luck and good thoughts for your design that a dozer bladed Ford would not touch Forever

This is really important guys and I am very happy to have your ideas and hope you can guide me with just a few more answers and offer other suggestions you may have. The shade cloth is a good idea and I think that would work well, but am even more interested in understanding bougainvillea as it would create a more scenic border. Is it correct bougainvillea can survive on its own without care here including making it through the dry season without water? Is there a certain variety to look for that is most suitable to a hedge or are they all pretty much the same? And what will it take to trim such a massive hedge to keep it contained?

What I am thinking of now is 2M concrete posts buried .5M meaning a 1.5M tall fence with barb wire on 20cm intervals. Plant bougainvillea on the inside of the fence. And furthermore move the fence 2M inside the perimeter of the property border so the bougainvillea has room to spread outside the fence without encroaching on neighbors property or roads. The concrete posts establishes the property line (within 2M accuracy in this case) and the barb wire offers the final discouragement to anyone thinking they can hack their way in with a machete at a weak spot in the bougainvillea.

I think you may have missed the point here. WE is an extremely knowledgeable fellow and has assisted us many many times on this forum so hopefully I can give him a payback here and answer your question and maybe save him a bit of tapping. He has discussed this method previously and used it while growing crops on the tops and sides of the hills. He then reverses this by putting the hills in the trenches and grows on top of this beautiful decomposted material and does the same thing again adding organic in the new trenches that he has leveled out where his hills used to be. The fertilizer with Nitrogen that he suggests that you add to the organic matter in the trenches (he is using the pig urine and feces) will speed the decomposition process and help it all turn into din dam. That fertilizer can be organic or chemicals but what you need is the nitrogen to break down the organic matter otherwise it will actually take the N out of your soil to assist in the breakdown and you will lose N to your plants if you are growing. Your idea of adding fertilizer say something maybe like 15-15-15 to the fill dirt or on top of it will give you some results immediately if you were thinking of maybe planting a crop like rice immediately over the newly leveled clay soil but as people are starting to learn it is a downward spiral of salting the ground with chems and then needing even more every year at always rising prices as the soil will continue to lose its fertility and tilth due to non-sustainable methods.

WE shows you his method and it is very labor intensive and requires good sourcing to be economically feasible (getting the organic materials free or at a low cost) and you can use his formula with 100% organic methods or combine with some chemical fertilizers to increase the soil fertility or your poor soil. You will probably want a soils test as I'm sure some form of calcium would be a good start to be able to put immediately on the clay soil to get some positive results with minimal labor and cost involved. Check the threads on Calcium in this forum and the organic one also ass each soil test will show what forms and combinations may best benefit you. The formula from WE is fantastic and in reality there is no way you will ever improve your soil and go towards getting it to be din dam without putting literally tons of organic compostable materials into the soil. One I would highly recommend and a very satisfying one is to plant sun hemp (pah teung) as a ground cover and disc it in when it flowers or chop it down and leave on the soil if there is more wet to keep it alive and let it grow again and start to flower. One thing is that you will have to get some manure into the ground first to get the right microbiotic life in the soil and then this legume like others will avctually take the nitrogen (air is 79% N) out of the air and fix it on their roots so you will get the green manure of the plant and the added benefit of the N from the atmosphere working to make your soil more fertile. Many people are able to get 50 kilos of this seed for free from their Ag departments as they are trying to promote farmers to use alternate methods to chem fertilizers. You will see it growing in just a few days, very satisfying. You may find some very useful threads in the organic section under their pinned articles for improving soils as I believe recently I read an article there where WE explained this method of his in a bit more detail and I think he was very generous with his time to spell it out again for you here. About 5 or 6 of the first 8 pinned topic are quite relevant to what you are asking for. Obviously the size of your plot determines how and what you may use and how you may do it most expediently and cost effectively. Good luck and Fords Forever For Food For all

PS Just read your post again and it appears that you may want to try to add something to the soils as they are being delivered before they spread and level. I think this would be very difficult as the money is made on speed of delivery and there are not many truck drivers that you can control very well in regards to their dumping and then your tractor operators in regards to his leveling the faster they do it the more money they make. this is a tough time of year to get soils as the rains have started and you can run into some real messes. that said there are people still doing it and you may get lucky, we haven't had three days without heavy heavy rains in the last 6 weeks timing will be everything. Lots of factors to consider , how deep of fill you will have; how deep are they excavating to give you fill; what was the land used for before (the source of fill) to name a few.

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.

Fantastic answer!

Briefly running out now, but I'd like to know more about adding chemical fertilizers as a start as that could perhaps be mixed with the fill when it goes down, the organic stuff later as I can get it.

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

You mean they don't have dinner plates and a toilet?

I think the most effective and inexpensive way is to plant bouganvilla plants and train the runners in a parralel fasion similar to a fence or even along a one string line of fence with widespread posts. Even if people try to cut the plants to get in or kill it it will re-grow and the dead vines and torns are worse than the live ones. Itwas very effective for theiving garbage throwing bad neighbors in Mexico. it truly makes a beautiful property border. Lots of water lots of fresh new growth; no water lots of beautiful blooms. choke Dee Ps a good trick is to stick the branches of one specimen into the ground after it has traveled a bit and it will start to root and give you a new root base that will sustain the bush if the old root ball is ruined for some reason. We have a bunch of rooted cutting s that are going to be planted along the border of one farm with neighbor problems

Just so you're on top of things.

On of your Mexicans, a cherry type, is still going strong with all the rains.

Another one, regular type, kind of sweet, soft texture, medium sized ( I should have kept those tags ) is also still producing.

All grown without any protection in between the grapes.

This year I also tested to see if any heirlooms will produce under the open sky; only the black Russians gave a decent yield.

PS, the dates will be ready soon & the new wood burning pizza oven made excellent pies, get ready for a visit.

Regards

good on you and glad to hear it. All of those I gave you were heirlooms some dating to the 1860's (don't remember what i gave you). The plants were doing so well in all ways but all in the field went under water and really sufferred so they got yanked. I'm a bit excited to get some going under cover and see what we can do though it isn't a big area it will be a good test area. the corrugated fiberglass that i got was pretty expensive and not very strong so i need to try to find some material that is more practical and durable or something that may be able to be used on a temporary basis but not thrown away each year. So much to do and so much rain. Such it is. FFFords FFFForever

A Disappointing Outcome - What can be learnt?

Below is a photo of a litter from a first parity gilt. The gestation time was 111 days.

The farrowing was unattended and on arrival the farmer found two piglets on the left breathing, both very cold and close to coma. Despite all attempts those two died as well. The puzzle here is to interrupt what the rest of the litter tells you.

Mummified litter.pdf

I will await any responses or thoughts before offering my own opinion.

Isaan Aussie

Come on folks what do you think? I have a bit of inside info on this so I'll give a clue. the answer can be found in vapor. Fords Forever

well done doggeroo we can use a smile for our tomatoes. Yours look great but ours exploded after transplanting in Issan Aussies compost and a blend of earth i made up. Some flowered so much that they looked like a mass of yellow flowers and you couldn't see the plants. A bunch went out into a plot in the rice farm and they were doing great. Went back to visit mom in March for a bit and the rains came and haven't stopped. He4avy rains and now well over a month with no let up. The tomatoes were thrashed but I am going to start planting again shortly and try them in a covered area I have built to try and see how they will do in the worst time of the year due to the rains we will be having but this is definitely smaller scale as an experiment. Rice was in last year at the end of June early July for some and we had to wait to be able to get into the ground and were lucky to get it in in the second week of May. La Nina is here big time in Lavia and yet Issan Aussie in Si Sa ket is still looking for some rain as he just got his in. haven't had much tme for the internet as I spent all of May on the farm and basically on the tractor or shovel or grease or wrench and saw alot of 12-16 hours days and really put a sttrain on the old and I do mean old body. great photo. Fords Forever

The EGAT mine at Mae Moh, Lampang is probably the biggest one. Ban Pu has a large operation at Sop Prab in Lampang. The are several mines around Li in Lamphun province. Lanna Lignite has a major presence and there are many other small operators scattered about the north.

Great and thanks let's see what advice the Doc can give us on what may need to be asked in regards to finding what we need. make "mine" a Ford

here's another link http://www.humates.com/