drtreelove

Just noticed this unanswered post.  The photos are too fuzzy on my monitor to identify.  But are you sure they are a pest?  Many insects seek habitat on foliage, but do no damage the host plant.

Unless there is damage associated with these visitors, no need to get rid of them, as birds and lizards and other natural predators may do that for you.  Or they will reach a stage in their life cycle and move on. 

3 hours ago, IsaanAussie said:

I am going to an organic farm on Saturday to have a look at what "experiments" they are doing to combat FAW in the rice crop. It was listed as an issue in the reference material quoted above but I have no idea how serious it is or may become. 

Thanks to the OP, stay tuned guys this could become huge!

Where, what region? Isaan. Do they have FAW now or just anticipating the swarm? Please post what experiments are underway. 

Are you offering Nutri-tech style agronomy now, with soil analysis?  If so it would be a worthy "experiment" as a foundation for their preventive measures. 

Fair warning there on a potentially devastating pest.  And some interesting information on preventive management that can apply to other crops and pest issues as well.

On the second day of the e-conference, Paul Jepson (Oregon State University) explained how certain pesticides do more harm than good by killing natural enemies and harming human health (slides). Malvika Chaudhary (CABI) then discussed the various options for biological control, i.e. biological control by introduction, augmentation and conservation (slides).

Several agronomic methods appear to influence FAW
infestation in smallholder conditions e.g., legume
intercropping (not pumpkin!), conservation agriculture,
organic amendments, retention of forest patches

(1) Minimum tillage; (2) Mulching;
(3) legume intercropping; (4)
flowering shrubs/trees; (5)
boundary trees; (6) crop rotation;
(7) regular scouting; (8) weeds;
(9) diverse field margins; (10)
insectivorous birds and bats; (11)
provision of nest sites; (12)
predatory wasps

Soil tests kits don't give you a complete picture of mineral deficiencies and balance.  Be aware that calcium hydroxide may not be a good soil amendment, especially if your soil is already alkaline.  Gypsum is more neutral and has many benefits for clay soil. But the best is a complete soil analysis. 

www.soilminerals.com

Test 1: Is your soil acidic, alkaline, or neutral? Use this simple home test to find out. Note that this test will not give you a specific pH reading, just a general idea of alkalinity or acidity.

Take a soil sample of a few tablespoons from 2 to 6 inches below your soil’s surface. Avoid sampling the top inch or two of soil as pH may be more variable within the “O” layer near the soil surface, and may be different than the pH of mineralized topsoil that we want to test a few inches down. Remove and keep out mulch, surface amendments, fertilizers, compost, organic matter such as roots and leaf litter, and anything else other than soil from your sample as much as possible. The soil sample can be dry or wet. 

Add vinegar. Put your soil sample into a clean glass or ceramic container and add 2 or 3 tablespoons of vinegar. If the soil fizzes or bubbles, this indicates soil alkalinity. 

If no fizzing with vinegar, make a small mudpie. Put a new soil sample into a clean glass or ceramic container, and add enough distilled water to make a soft, very-wet mudpie, about the consistency of thin oatmeal or a semi-melted milkshake. Add a tablespoon or two of baking soda. If the mudpie fizzes or bubbles, this indicates soil acidity.

If neither vinegar nor baking soda produces fizzing, this suggests that your soil sample is neutral or near-neutral, with a pH of about 7.0.

Good luck sorting it out.  Even if you know the substances by definition, products in Thailand are not always labeled true to their actual identity. Or they are provided in cheap impure forms that don't resemble or perform according to what I am used to in the US.  And explanations don't make sense, misrepresentations are common and many vendors don't really know the products they sell. 

I ordered Calcium sulfate, agricultural gypsum as described by a manager at a major Thai producer.  When I got to the head office to pick it up, the product bags were labeled Calcium oxide.  They told my wife and I that they had to label it that way to get around regulations, but swore up an down that it was actually gypsum.  I cracked a bag and examined it and it didn't appear like any gypsum I had ever used. I wasn't confident in the explanation so I rejected it. 

The only supplier I would trust is TV member Evolare and his wife's family business http://www.bonemeal.net/

They are increasing their product line of organic agricultural products well beyond their primary bone meal business.

https://sodimate-inc.com/differences-hydrated-lime-quicklime/

http://www.essentialchemicalindustry.org/chemicals/calcium-carbonate.html

^{Even though you think your trees are getting adequate water from the ground water one meter below, there are some benefits to soil surface watering for the larger picture of soil and plant health. Especially if you are fertilizing and mulching and encouraging a wide reaching absorbing root system in the topsoil like you should. Building soil organic matter content and cultivating the beneficial soil organisms that work to release the nutrients that plants need for growth, flower and fruit production is an important consideration.} 

Short of soil testing and prescription amendments, which is probably not cost effective for one tree, I recommend applying a COF (complete organic fertilizer), not high NPK, high salts chemical products. The tree appears to have adequate vegetative growth and good color, so don't use a high Nitrogen fertilizer. 

It's hard to find a good, new generation COF in Thailand, even though they are all over the US now, in every garden center, Down To Earth, Dr Earth, Fox Farm and other brands.  You can read about COF in the book The Intelligent Gardener by Steve Solomon. I found a PDF download online. 

The relatively complete nutrient, manure based, true compost from Natural Agriculture in Chiang Mai is good, but they don't sell online or ship, you have to pick it up in Mae Taeng. 

http://www.thai-organic-compost.com/index.html

I have not used this company's product, but they say the right things, indicating that they know what it takes to build a high nutrient COF. (I don't know where it is sold in Thailand)

https://www.cropagro.com/

Organic Fertilizer Nutrients
There are 16 nutrient elements required to grow plant. Three essential nutrients, carbon (C), hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O2), are taken up from atmospheric carbon dioxide and water. The other 13 nutrients are taken up from the soil.

Best organic fertilizer need to have 13 nutrient elements, and they can be divided into 2 groups:

Macronutrients and Micronutrients.

Organic Totto has a bokashi COF which I have used and like.  

https://www.organictotto.com/

Contact TV member Evolare who's wife's family owns the Bone Meal Factory www.bonemeal.net. They are selling many organic fertilizer components now, in addition to bone meal. 

And mulch, mulch, mulch the soil surface of your mango tree root zone. 

There are some considerations for weed control, depending on the type of plants and where they are located. 

You say that you are "continually weeding your gardens", indicating that the unwanted plants may be growing amongst your desirable plants.  If so, then chemical weed killer may not be an option unless there is adequate spacing for spot spraying without the danger of over-spray or drift onto non-target plants. So be sure you know what you are doing before spraying herbicides. 

Mechanical control, pulling, digging may be the best method in and around your garden plantings.  Spreading a thick layer of mulch, 2 to 4 inches, 5 to 10 cm, will suppress smaller less aggressive weeds. And even if larger weeds come up through it, the mulch, in time will make the soil moist and loose so that pulling and digging weeds will be easier.

A scuffle hoe makes manual weed control a little easier in some situations. https://www.amazon.com/Rogue-Scuffle-Hoe-60S/dp/B003R1CGR4

Or hire some help.

If you have to resort to chemical herbicide, there have been many discussions about products and availability on this forum and the Farming forum. With any pesticide use, be fully informed and follow precautions for safe and effective use. 

That's impossible to answer without more information. There are more factors to consider.

That kind of radical reduction pruning can cause severe physiological stress and disrupt metabolic processes for several years. Heavy pruning can expose the woody branch structure to sunburn and resulting loss of bark and wood decay that limits circulation of water and nutrients.   Are you doing more pruning that may be bad timing for food storage and the flower production cycle?

What kind of follow up care  have you done? Watering and fertilization? For a tree to regrow and resume flowering and fruiting it needs adequate water during the dry season and nutritional support. 

Post photos of the tree and the site. And describe the growing conditions, soil and water management. 

On 7/5/2019 at 7:03 PM, IsaanAussie said:

This is a very positive move. The area around us is all rainfed rice paddies. It all gets sprayed with serious herbicide prior to ploughing and most again after seeding with pre-emergent herbicide. If undertaken by the village or Tambon officials the training and control of users would be easy. We have 3 or 4 guys that currently do the spraying for the whole community and they are pretty careful. Previously some people that did it became badly affected with one or two deaths supposedly as a consequence. Big tick from me.

Careful about what? Product selection, application rates, spray drift, applicator safety, personal protective equipment, re-entry intervals, environmental contamination?  Chemical resistant shorts and flip-flops? Respirators for the kids that tag along while dads are spraying the fields. 

Pre-emergent herbicides are the primary pesticide contaminant for waterways and ground water. So no matter how "careful" they are with other aspects, the use of pre-emergents is a danger for the community and all life downstream. Also, some herbicides like glyphosate if overused can alter soil chemistry and things like calcium absorption, setting off a whole chain of nutrient imbalance and more and more chemical use. 

I'm in the US right now and because of immense growing public pressure against hard chemistry herbicide use, especially RoundUp, we are using more organic program compatible herbicidal soap.  It's not systemic/translocatable into root systems, but it does a good job of burn down and short term control, and it biodegrades and is not persistent in the environment. 

IMO the farmer training, instead of focusing on and legitimizing the dubious safe use of toxic chemistries, should address education for Integrated Vegetation Management and alternative methods and materials. Deaths from herbicide exposure is extreme. The kind of chemistry that could cause that is not even needed for effective weed management. 

Consider a vine/creeper, depending on your objectives, unless you really need the density of a shrub barrier for some reason. 

I planted Ficus pumila (syn. Ficus repens) to cover a 2 meter high bare concrete wall. (fig vine, local common names jimjok or tokay) It's not real fast, but low maintenance and self supporting. It achieved full coverage in two years on the east side of a wall (morning full sun but on the shady side in afternoon). There are also some extraordinary beautiful flowering vines available, like rangoon creeper and coral vine. Some need a trellis support framework, and directional pruning maintenance.  

A big advantage is cost, with vine spacing up to 3 meters or more, instead of 3 shrubs per meter that you are considering. 

Visit a botanical garden like Queen Sirikit Botanical Garden in Mae Rim District of Chiang Mai and see the "creeper" collection, where you can view mature vines and see how they grow and flower. 

Don

VINES PRESENTATION.pptx

Try putting a cup of liquid EM in the fish tank.  (Effective Micro-organisms)

Organic Totto company makes a high quality EM.  I put a liter in our outdoor small pond and it cleared up all the thick green algae like magic in a few days. The concrete pond became sparkling clear, sides and bottom, as if I'd scrubbed it and put crystal clear mountain spring water.  The guppies were happy, noticeably energized and getting pregnant.  All I did was pour in the EM and run the recirculating fountain pump. 

https://www.organictotto.com/index.php?lay=show&ac=article&Id=539114098

Scroll down to see the EM and EM balls.  You may be able to buy it online.  There are other EM products available, Home Pro and Global House have several.  But I've only used this brand in Thailand, and EM-1 in the US. 

The Organic Totto company is located in Samut Prakan near the crocodile farm. (Mouth of Chao Phraya River on coastal outskirts of Bangkok, at the end of the BTS Sukhumvit line, Kheha Station. 

Their bokashi organic fertilizer is super good stuff too. 

http://compostteamaking.com/35/em•1®-effective-microorganisms-for-organic-gardening-organic-farming-and-personal-health/

My mulching hero! Another genius Austrahlian! Now this guy doesn't mess around with a sprinkle of straw, he knows how to mulch.

Check it out: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=1lKWlu4RYv0

8 hours ago, wasanajones said:

giant asian wasps can be dangerous, if you google it you'll see people have died in China

 

I got stung by one that was in my shirt, something you don't forget - lucky for me there was a thick protective layer between my skin and internal organs

 

The larvae are actually a delicacy - we had a guy come and smoke them then gathered the larvae, he said he was going to sell in the local market

Not likely to be giant asian hornets as suggested. it looks like a tiger wasp nest and these are also very dangerous if they swarm.

Quite possible, fertilizer burn is common, especially with use of high rates of high nitrogen, high salt-index chemical fertilizer. High salts desiccates the roots, preventing uptake of water and nutrients, no matter how abundant. It recovers only when the salts have been diluted and leached and new roots have generated.  High NPK chemical fertilizers also negatively affect the beneficial soil biology which is all-important in long term soil and plant health.  Chemical dependency is the opposite of organic lawn care that builds on healthy natural processes. 

The opposite could also be a factor, if the grass in on a sandy soil base that has not been prepared and buffered with moisture holding amendments. Heavy rains or irrigation can leach important plant nutrients and create deficiencies which will show up as chlorosis (yellowing), other discoloration or stunted growth.

Need more information on growing conditions.  It could be root rot, due to underlying soil quality, poor drainage. Soil preparation is everything, in creating good growing conditions. 

You don't indicate how many trees you have, if it's a commercial orchard or few small trees. It makes a difference for what is practical and affordable.

An essential is to build soil organic matter content. For a few trees, a small home orchard you can mulch with materials that are locally available and affordable, rice straw, rice hulls, ground coconut husk.  For a larger planting, I recommend growing a legume green manure crop during the rainy season, its one very low cost fertility improvement.

I previously hobby farmed 10 rai in Mae Jo, Chiang Mai and had 1 rai, 55 mature mango trees.  I seeded jack beans that we got free from the Land Department. There are other legumes available, depending on what they have in stock at the time.

We spread manure from the nearby Army Pack Squadron donkey and horse stables. It wasn't free but about 20 baht a sack, picked up.  When the beans were at their peak of vegetative growth, about two months, before they flower and start to get woody, I cut with a krueng tat ya and leave lay as mulch. I was doing "no till" in order not to disturb the surface absorbing root zone. 

I don't think you can go wrong with spreading gypsum, Calcium Sulfate. It supplies Ca and S without changing the soil pH, and has many benefits.  Other mineral nutrients are best addressed with a soil test and prescription recommendations for amendments. Like Yinn pointed out, soils vary, in texture (sand, silt, clay) and mineral nutrient levels, and other factors. 

I don't recommend high NPK fertilizers, (over 10% value for each, especially Nitrogen).  There is new and very important information on how high NPK chemical fertilizers may produce good green growth and crop yields, but how they invite pest and disease issues. It feeds the chemical industry as much as it does the land. The more high NPK chemicals, the more hard chemistry pesticides you will need to buy. 

On 5/28/2019 at 6:51 AM, djayz said:

 

I've read conflicting reports about fertilizing figs, however, most reports inficate that they need very little, if any, fertilizer. 

 

I would say that this is a bogus statement. Soil fertility and plant nutrition should always be considered, for all plants, in respect to plant health, resistance to pests and disease, and productivity.  Especially where monsoon rains heavily leach important plant nutrients from the upper soil profile. 

Most discussion on fertilizer, and general statements like this are oriented to chemical NPK fertilizers.  If you are using intelligent soil building with slow release organic amendments, the high NPK fertilizer observations don't apply. 

Consider at least using gypsum for the Calcium and Sulfur, which are both used in abundance by plants and are vulnerable to leaching. 

And consider neem pest repellent sprays (if organic program, or abamectin if not)  to prevent mites and the fig mosaic virus that they transmit. 

Your concern is legitimate, and should include the water supply, irrigation ditches and groundwater, as well as airborne drift and overspray.  There is excessive and indiscriminate use of harsh chemistry by many farmers, Thai and expat. (Don't get a false sense of security by other foreigners presence, many don't know or care about their environment, food and water supply like you do). 

There are organic methods and bio-pesticide materials available, and a big movement toward organic programs, but it has a long way to go.  You may consider visiting local organic farmers markets and asking around for communities that are organic farming or permaculture oriented. 

Yasathon has a big organic rice farmers co-op. Chiang Mai has an active organic farmers market and growers community. Land bordering national parks and other undeveloped, non-farmed areas may be available.

Post your property search in the organic subforum here and you may find some like minded friends who have pursued the same interests. 

On 6/8/2019 at 7:24 AM, Time to grow said:

I posted this in another section but this one seems more relevant. I am looking for a source of three organic garden amendments, two of which to deal with grubs in my raised beds and one as an additive to an aquaponics system. Specifically, some beneficial nematodes (Heterorhabditis Bacteriophora), some Milky Spore, and some soluble kelp powder. I have several raised garden beds with exceptionally rich soil that the grubs just love. I understand the Nematodes and Milky Spore are particularly good at eliminating grubs. These products are readily available in N. America and even other countries of SE Asia but I can't find a supplier in Thailand. Due to the nature of the products being live, it seems importation is complicated.

 

I am not sure how Thai farmers control grubs other than with harmful pesticides but I am open to other methods if anyone knows of a control.

Try this:

http://www.entomology.wisc.edu/mbcn/kyf607.html

I haven't seen a predatory nematodes source, but others may have that information.

Kelp solutions are available, mostly in small containers, a liter or less, I haven't seen bulk kelp meal. It's a wonderful soil amendment and trace mineral source, but won't be a direct control for grubs. 

22 minutes ago, Badrabbit said:

that's got me scared of eating them, why is it so difficult to eat healthy.
 

Its only one factor, in a comprehensive wellness program. What you eat, how you eat and chew, what foods and drinks you combine, what exercise you do, and what you don't do that may negatively affect and drag you down, are all important to consider.