connda

This has probably been posted before, but for the folks who are paying 150 B/transaction -- use AEON bank ATMs located in Lotus / Tesco and Super Big C on the ring road. They do not charge a 150 B/transaction fee.

THe usual clap-trap from the "hang-em-high" brigade I see.

wouldn't life be lovely if all problems were simply a case of black and white?

Firstly it might be a good to bear in mind that the streets of Thailand are NOT crawling with "killer student gangs".

However in a country where MPs take automatic weapons into restaurants and shoot people with apparent impunity, what can you expect of their spawn?

Agreed -- TIT.

Sure! You bet.

We just finished harvest last week. We need to prune and prep the ground for the next sesaon.

Thanks again for the information!

Thanks for the replies. Our vet had said to wait until 8 months to a year. Now I understand why. Young male cats, from my reading, don't get territorial and start spraying until after 1 year although they are sexually mature before that. And my dogs are fenced. As long as I don't have problems with our male and female doing "The K-9 Tango" together, I'll hold off to enable them to become more mature.

I have 1 female puppy, 1 male puppy, and 1 male kitten.

At what should I have the female spayed and the males neutered? Any time difference in neutering the puppy and kitten?

BTW, I'm not Thai and these are not free-roaming soi dogs (and never will be if I can help it). We have about a 1/2 rai fenced area around our home that the dogs run free in.

Thanks!

These indebted farmers are mostly borrowing to play the forex and futures markets and making a killing, no doubt.

Hope they haven't made the mistake of using MF Global or PFG. Futures brokers can "vaporize" your segregated client accounts. Aaaaaand it's gone!

Connda, how often do/did you use those breathe right strips? Daily or whenever needed? I used them sometimes when I have a stuffy nose/cold. They do work great, really opens up the passage way. I live in CM and never seen them, but never really looked for them. I do have a couple/few I can send to you if you are not in CM. In case you really, really need something now.

Thanks for the offer Jimmy40. I have about 30 left that I brought from the US. I use them on occasion when my nose gets stuffy and night. However, good news. I Googled "breathe right strips" and "make your own" and got some good ideas. You can make a homemade strip buy cutting a flexible plastic strip from the top of a Pringles can or other piece of light plastic, and attach it with a band-aide. I usually clean my skin with some alcohol first to remove the oil. Once I run out, that seems to be a pretty good and inexpensive solution.

Thanks again!

I've got a diviated septum and have had sinus issue all my life. In the US, I used Breathe Right strips at night -- they work great. But I can't find them in Thailand. Anyone know how to get them here?

We are working three orchards but way down south and east from you in Pong Nam Ron, Chantaburi. I think there are differences in tree varieties, production techniques and marketing here. This would possibly be due to a slightly different climate and proximity to shipping?. All our larger 1-3 fruit and nigh on everyone else's goes to China and prices vary from 30-40. Most buyers go around and contract to buy fruit 4,5 months before harvest and they supply the labour. The grading is different they use a numbering system here from 1-4. The 4 sized fruit sold locally and usually peeled and dried and sold as pulp goes for 9baht a kilo at the moment. Last year we had 5 tons and a bit of 1-3 and a ton of 4. So my advice would probably not be relevant, but I'll give it anyway.

We prune after harvest, fertilise and irrigate once at that time and then leave them for a couple of months, irrigating every couple of weeks if no rain. Then apply fertiliser again before finally applying a small amount of sodium chlorate to force the trees to flower. Then a cycle of irrigating every 4th day and fertilising about every three weeks introducing some urea a couple of times in about 50/50 with 15/15/15. Some spraying against pests and disease occurs and a hormone is applied. In the middle of the cycle we apply a generic fertiliser. We also thin the clusters of fruit so that fruit has more chance to reach optimum size. A rough guide would be about 50 fruit in a cluster as a goal. To start with some of them have 100 or more. As the fruit starts to get bigger we add a sweeter mix and at the end irrigate every couple of days.

Good stuff here. We had very few fruit clusters larger than about 10 fruit. Very rarely 25 to 35 per cluster, but those we did get tended to be large grade fruit. So I'm really interested in your comment about using sodium chlorate to stimulate flower clusters. How much are you using per tree and approximately when during the cool / dry season did you use it. I know we vary a bit being further north -- we lag the farmers south of us by 4 to 6 weeks. 100 per cluster??? Wow, I wish!

I'm sure my wife will promise to vote the right way if the price is right. However, as long as she collects cold, hard cash, I'm pretty sure she'll vote however she pleases (at least that's what she has done in the past -- why buck the system if the system is promising cash! From a moral standpoint it's not the way I'd go, but then again, I can't own farmland here, so I'm pretty much a sideline observer.

I wonder how many of those 2000 baht fines have ever been levied...

Well, for the Cigarette Police who are targeting Farang tourists who are ignorant of this law (and can't read the Thai "No Smoking" signs I imagine that business is brisk. Now that they are collecting 5K instead of 2K, I'm sure the kickback bonus is pretty darn good! (Hypothetically that is) More reason to target "rich" (and ignorant) Farang!

Well, when the crop futures are manipulated at the highest levels, the filter down effect is that Thai farmers receive less for their crops than they spend in expenses and labor. Yeah! It's hard to make a living. But I'm sure the brokers are doing just fine. It's good to be HiSo!!!

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The Western "To Big To Fail Banks" and their crony elected officials in Western governments have corruption honed to a science. The corruption in Thailand is third-world child's play compared to what the Wall Street and London white shoe boys pull off.

UNfortunately this is not about Western banks, like Standard Chartered which just settled a money laundering probe in the States for a measly $340 million.

The topic is "Thai government to unveil 'stop corruption' ratification". Mind you I didn't know a government would need to 'ratify' implementation of local laws or even push for strictly following them

What I find interesting is that in Thailand (and many third-world and emerging counties) the "corruption is pervasive throughout the social strata. We can see it in many forms: bribery at a traffic%

What I find interesting is that in Thailand (and many third-world and emerging counties) the "corruption is pervasive throughout the social strata. We can see it in many forms: bribery at a traffic stop, tea money at the Land Office to “expedite” paperwork, tuk tuk and jet ski scams, up through skimming government contracts and “compensating” rural villager to vote for a certain candidate.

In the Western world corruption has sort of “risen to the top”, like surface scum in a septic system. Pervasive corruption has been eradicated, only to be replace by a more insidious form: Corpocracy or classically defined Fascism (merger of corporation and government interests for the sole benefit to both). In Western cultures, there is an internal moral relativism where the vast majority of the population abide by a moral code, whereas their governments and corporation ride roughshod over anything that doesn’t produce a profit or monetary incentive (executive bonuses, campaign contributions…). Laws are passed to make morally questionable issues legal, e.g., restrict individual contributions to political candidates but enact laws to allow unlimited corporate donations via Political Actions Committees, or judicial entities enforce laws unequally, e.g., a “street hustler” goes to jail for conning a “mark in a game of three card monty, but “connected” individuals such as the “(less than) honorable” Jon Stevens Corzine can misappropriate (vaporize) 1.2 billion dollars of client funds and walk away without any judicial scrutiny.

Thailand simply has not “matured” enough to embrace that level of corruption that is endemic in Western countries. They will first have to rein in the lower level of society: the tuk tuk and jet ski scammers, the police officer, the land office official as they merge corporate and government interests into one and make those things that are illegal – well, legal for those in the upper echelon of Thai society.

They are not there yet, but if they study their Western counterparts, I’m sure that they are on their way…

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The Western "To Big To Fail Banks" and their crony elected officials in Western governments have corruption honed to a science. The corruption in Thailand is third-world child's play compared to what the Wall Street and London white shoe boys pull off.

UNfortunately this is not about Western banks, like Standard Chartered which just settled a money laundering probe in the States for a measly $340 million.

The topic is "Thai government to unveil 'stop corruption' ratification". Mind you I didn't know a government would need to 'ratify' implementation of local laws or even push for strictly following them

What I find interesting is that in Thailand (and many third-world and emerging counties) the "corruption is pervasive throughout the social strata. We can see it in many forms: bribery at a traffic%

What an amazingly trivial post! There is so little news happening in Thailand (and the world) that this passes for news?

What seems to work most years" prune after harvest, clear under trees and dispose of trimmings,and trash

apply 15 20 15 aeround drip line of trees prior to rainey season and second application of same towards end of rain (December)

irrigrate every 2 weeks or so during dry season the equilivent of 1 to 1 and 1/4 inch of rain each time.

After new leaf come on, hold off irrigation until bloom starts and sets and then start same schedule as before.increase to 2 inch each time.

There is a hormone to intensify bloom and set which does seem to help. Manure worked in around tree makes for more mellow soil and gives a nitrogen kick.if done with second application fo fertilizer

good luck if price holds at 25 to 30/kilo for AA there is money to be made. 60 to 65 percent of fruit grade AA, has been my experience on good years, using these guidelines.

Thanks for the information!

We grew lamyai on our farm in Chiangmai until about 5 years ago. We had about 200 trees, We never got more than Bt10 per kilo and it cost us quite a lot of money getting people to pick and sort our crop. Some years there is a glut and the price goes down to Bt5 a kilo.

It does not require much attention and it is easy to grow in lampang. You must water them and give them a little fertiliser. The only way you can get a better crop is replanting the trees with a better variety. I would not be too optimistic about making a profit because there are so many people planting the trees now. You would do better with KRATORN trees

We had fire jump from public land to our orchard 3 years ago that took out about 1/3 of our trees. We've decided to put in mangoes to replace them. This will give us two harvests a year, and no one else in the area is growing mangoes. We're expecting to be ahead of the curve on this. We may eventually completely phase out the lumyai.

...and thanks also for the input!

My wife and I have just started working her Lumyai orchard this year (it's been fallow for about 5 years). Pretty much broke even after labor and materials. AA size lumyai was selling for upwards of 26 baht/kilo with medium size at 10 baht/kilo. The majority of our fruit was medium sized. I really would like to get our yields per rai higher next year and grow larger lumyai fruit (AA size).

I'd like to get more information regarding fertilizers, hormones, irrigation schedules and any other tips in order to increase the yield and size of the fruit. We are growing in Lamphun Province.

Thanks!

I have a difficult time believing this.

Thais love to sing. Most of them can't. But what difference does it make if she is having fun?

They're driving on the right hand side so that's probably the US. I'd say after that happened, the guns come out. That will get you shot in the US too. BTW -- childish on both drivers part.

And I see stupid and aggressive driving in Thailand all the time.

I know exactly which area of CMU you're talking about, Sante. I was there a couple of weeks ago with the intention of jogging, until I saw a pack of about 10 dogs in the vicinity, I decided to go elsewhere. Do like me and don't take any chances. Go to Huay Tung Thao or 700 Stadium instead. The same warning goes for the vast City Hall grounds...there's a pack of unfriendly dogs who have claimed part of the territory as theirs. They once came out of nowhere and chased me while I was biking.

The dogs at CMU are pretty nasty. Don't show fear, ignore them (i.e., don't look at them), make yourself look big, and act confident. You are being the alpha male and letting them know that. They'll reluctantly give ground. But yeah, that group are some of the most menacing dogs I've come across in Thailand.

It's called implementing a customer service model -- highly unlikely here in the LOS. It's not advertised as The Land of Service!

"The NCAA also imposed a four-year ban on participation in postseason play in the sport of football, beginning with the 2012-2013 season and expiring at the conclusion of the 2015-2016 season. During the four-year period, the school will not be eligible to participate in any postseason competition, including a conference championship, any bowl game, or any postseason playoff competition."

That's the politically correct way to do things -- Screw the players for the wrongs of the coaching staff and that pedophile POS. NCAA should basically demand that Penn State fire everyone involved (looking the other way), then get back to business. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Sandusky faces up to 442 years in prison for his crimes.

That will probably become the death penalty unless Sandusky is put into protective custody within the prison. Inmates are not fond of pedophiles.