Euca Are Profitable

[neejack]

we are euca frmers in yasothon, and i read with disbelief at some of the participants in this forum regading the crop, you are either not euca farmers or being totally ripped off by either the locals or the buyers

example we bought a rai of land last year crop 50 euca, on with about 180 2yr old trunks we were up there last week, and were offered 8,000 baht for the trunks alone, do not have to do anything, euca is good solid investment, chinese and japanese are buying euca buy the ship loads and buying at premium prices plus shipping all euca farmers do not listen to the antis, there most probably english teachers.

i do hope i have'nt put the cat amongst the pigeons

[AlbertTatlockDeceased]

we are euca frmers in yasothon, and i read with disbelief at some of the participants in this forum regading the crop, you are either not euca farmers or being totally ripped off by either the locals or the buyers

example we bought a rai of land last year crop 50 euca, on with about 180 2yr old trunks we were up there last week, and were offered 8,000 baht for the trunks alone, do not have to do anything, euca is good solid investment, chinese and japanese are buying euca buy the ship loads and buying at premium prices plus shipping all euca farmers do not listen to the antis, there most probably english teachers.

i do hope i have'nt put the cat amongst the pigeons

Interesting,

I have some land here that I originally planted with Lam Yai, and the prices now are ridiculously low. I have replanted one area with Teak trees (mainly as an investment for my son later) However, I still have a lot of space and wanted to put something on it, even to just stop the grass growing.

Any chance you would share a little info on the Euca trees, what you buy them for, how long they take to grow to saleable size etc.

I am up North, any problems with climate, and occaisional flooding?

Thanks

[neejack]

we are euca frmers in yasothon, and i read with disbelief at some of the participants in this forum regading the crop, you are either not euca farmers or being totally ripped off by either the locals or the buyers

example we bought a rai of land last year crop 50 euca, on with about 180 2yr old trunks we were up there last week, and were offered 8,000 baht for the trunks alone, do not have to do anything, euca is good solid investment, chinese and japanese are buying euca buy the ship loads and buying at premium prices plus shipping all euca farmers do not listen to the antis, there most probably english teachers.

i do hope i have'nt put the cat amongst the pigeons

Interesting,

I have some land here that I originally planted with Lam Yai, and the prices now are ridiculously low. I have replanted one area with Teak trees (mainly as an investment for my son later) However, I still have a lot of space and wanted to put something on it, even to just stop the grass growing.

Any chance you would share a little info on the Euca trees, what you buy them for, how long they take to grow to saleable size etc.

I am up North, any problems with climate, and occaisional flooding?

Thanks

[Lickey]

Congradulations Neejack, 8000bht in 2 years, my Mrs does the book for our farm, paying labour and fertilizer ect, we make a clear profit of 8000bht every 6 weeks,

[ozzydom]

Congradulations Neejack, 8000bht in 2 years, my Mrs does the book for our farm, paying labour and fertilizer ect, we make a clear profit of 8000bht every 6 weeks,

Wow,1300 odd baht a week profit.

[Lickey]

Yep, and thats in the wet season when prices are crap!! 2k a day in the dry season including electricity/irrigation costs, can anybody do that with euca or fish?

Edited July 30, 2007 by Lickey

[ozzydom]

Yep, and thats in the wet season when prices are crap!! 2k a day in the dry season including electricity/irrigation costs, can anybody do that with euca or fish?

Lickey, thats a pretty nonsensical statement, it would all depend on the farm size,capitol input,type of crop etc , etc ,etc , the poster was only stating what he was offered for a few euca and stumps on 3 rai he bought.

[Lickey]

example we bought a rai of land last year crop 50 euca, on with about 180 2yr old trunks we were up there last week, and were offered 8,000 baht for the trunks alone, OPs quote,

Dom, the way i read this is that he bought 1 rai with 50 euca growing and has/had about 180 2yr old trunks,which he was offered 8000bht for, about 44bht a trunk,

Ive no idea how to look after a euca tree but im sure some maintance is required, weeding,harvesting ect,pruning even? do they have insect problems or root rot at times?

If the OP could let us know these things and the purchase price of young trees, Thankyou.

Meanwhile, our {my hobby} fruit,veg and salad {40rai} farm is doing well, if that fails with a tonado or some other act of god, her beauty salon is doing really well.

Cheers, Lickey.

[joeuk1]

<br />example we bought a rai of land last year crop 50 euca, on with about 180 2yr old trunks we were up there last week, and were offered 8,000 baht for the trunks alone, OPs quote,<br /><br />Dom, the way i read this is that he bought 1 rai with 50 euca growing and has/had about 180 2yr old trunks,which he was offered 8000bht for, about 44bht a trunk, <br />Ive no idea how to look after a euca tree but im sure some maintance is required, weeding,harvesting ect,pruning even? do they have insect problems or root rot at times?<br /><br />If the OP could let us know these things and the purchase price of young trees, Thankyou.<br /><br />Meanwhile, our {my hobby} fruit,veg and salad {40rai} farm is doing well, if that fails with a tonado or some other act of god, her beauty salon is doing really well.<br /> Cheers, Lickey.<br /><br />

<br /><br /><br />

Well you will always be ok for a haircut .

[ozzydom]

example we bought a rai of land last year crop 50 euca, on with about 180 2yr old trunks we were up there last week, and were offered 8,000 baht for the trunks alone, OPs quote,

Dom, the way i read this is that he bought 1 rai with 50 euca growing and has/had about 180 2yr old trunks,which he was offered 8000bht for, about 44bht a trunk,

Ive no idea how to look after a euca tree but im sure some maintance is required, weeding,harvesting ect,pruning even? do they have insect problems or root rot at times?

If the OP could let us know these things and the purchase price of young trees, Thankyou.

Meanwhile, our {my hobby} fruit,veg and salad {40rai} farm is doing well, if that fails with a tonado or some other act of god, her beauty salon is doing really well.

Cheers, Lickey.

Lickey,eucalyptus are pretty much trouble free,they have evolved over millions of years in Oz to resist drought,flooding, pests, even fire to a degree. In wetter areas some develop caulky heartwood as they get older (20 +yrs ).

Maintenance depends on your ultimate market, if its pulp wood then they can be a set and forget job.

If your aim is higher revenue nice straight poles for the building industry or longer term sawmill logs then some maintenance is preferred,such as initial weed control, a little fertilising and the pruning of lower branches.

Once established, weeds are not a big problem and the more dense you plant the less likelihood of weeds establishing,pruning gives you growth upwards ,not outwards .

If I were planting a new plantation,I would make my rows 2metre with 120cm between seedlings,I would plant a 1metre wide row of Casova up the centre to harvest in either 1 or 2 yrs as a cash crop(same as used in new rubber plantations).The harvesting of the casova would also open up the ground between the euca rows to assist in water absorbsion.

Then with selective harvesting you would get (lower grade cut first) firstly your casova cash crop then 5 or 6 harvests of euca each 10 years and eventually at 20-25 years the mill timber which have been retained on a quality basis.

Cheers Ozzy

[Lickey]

Good information, thankyou Ozzy, and if you dont mind, i would like to pick your brains a little more, our 40 rai hillside farm is totally full with 1000 papaya trees{2years old} 1500 new papaya, 700+ banana plants, 80 tamarind trees, 5 orange, 4 kanoon,2rai chilli, 2 rai watermelon/squash/cucumber,1 rai covered salad/herb raised beds, 2 rai sweetcorn, 60 lamyai trees, 4 lychee, and perhaps some i have forgotten!!

So, getting to the point, the recent storms and high winds have knocked over or de-fruited some of the Papaya trees at the top of the farm most susepcticle, so ive been thinking about a profitable windbreak, would eucas be an answer?

Thanks, Lickey.

[JungleBiker]

Good information, thankyou Ozzy, and if you dont mind, i would like to pick your brains a little more, our 40 rai hillside farm is totally full with 1000 papaya trees{2years old} 1500 new papaya, 700+ banana plants, 80 tamarind trees, 5 orange, 4 kanoon,2rai chilli, 2 rai watermelon/squash/cucumber,1 rai covered salad/herb raised beds, 2 rai sweetcorn, 60 lamyai trees, 4 lychee, and

... a partridge in a pear tree?

So, getting to the point, the recent storms and high winds have knocked over or de-fruited some of the Papaya trees at the top of the farm most susepcticle, so ive been thinking about a profitable windbreak, would eucas be an answer?

Whether or not profitable, I just want to suggest you don't plant your windbreak trees too close together. The idea is to slow the wind down and reduce its force, not try to stop it. If some of the wind cannot pass between the trees you will create a strong turbulence behind the trees that can damage your crops.

JB.

[ozzydom]

Good information, thankyou Ozzy, and if you dont mind, i would like to pick your brains a little more, our 40 rai hillside farm is totally full with 1000 papaya trees{2years old} 1500 new papaya, 700+ banana plants, 80 tamarind trees, 5 orange, 4 kanoon,2rai chilli, 2 rai watermelon/squash/cucumber,1 rai covered salad/herb raised beds, 2 rai sweetcorn, 60 lamyai trees, 4 lychee, and perhaps some i have forgotten!!

So, getting to the point, the recent storms and high winds have knocked over or de-fruited some of the Papaya trees at the top of the farm most susepcticle, so ive been thinking about a profitable windbreak, would eucas be an answer?

Thanks, Lickey.

Lickey, JB is pretty right about the wind to a point, in our hop fields we planted poplars very close and kept them topped at 45feet ,virtually no wind passed throughbut they are a special case as hops do a circuit of 360degrees a day as they wind their way up the string and the end tip is extremely tender and easily damaged by wind,but you dont have hops and I havnt seen poplars in Los .

I would look at planting three rows of euca with staggered spacings,there are faster growers but most of them are deciduous,so they defeat the purpose.

[Lickey]

JB, a partridge in a pear tree,mmm, ive heard birds that sound like this on the farm, pidgeon perhaps? cooing away, The thai pear is my favorite refreshing fruit when cold,dont know anything about the tree and growth time ect,will do some research later tonight,Yes, i understand about the turbulence/vortex problem of trying to stop wind.

Ozzy, I read on a banana website about staggering culms on the prevailing wind side of the plantation and making holes 1 foot deeper than normal to give them more stabbilty, we didnt have to do this because the neighbours orchards offer protection.

Back to the Euca, i had a measure up today and there is 400 mtrs that could be planted along the fences, 3 rows stagger planted, now could i plant 1 row every 6 months say,then when they are ready for harvest i still have 2 rows for my windbreak, also, at harvest, do the roots need to come out? are they deep-rooted and need a tractor for this? and can anyone subtansiate the claims that euca is bad for soil.

Thanks, Lickey.

[ozzydom]

Good information, thankyou Ozzy, and if you dont mind, i would like to pick your brains a little more, our 40 rai hillside farm is totally full with 1000 papaya trees{2years old} 1500 new papaya, 700+ banana plants, 80 tamarind trees, 5 orange, 4 kanoon,2rai chilli, 2 rai watermelon/squash/cucumber,1 rai covered salad/herb raised beds, 2 rai sweetcorn, 60 lamyai trees, 4 lychee, and perhaps some i have forgotten!!

So, getting to the point, the recent storms and high winds have knocked over or de-fruited some of the Papaya trees at the top of the farm most susepcticle, so ive been thinking about a profitable windbreak, would eucas be an answer?

Thanks, Lickey.

Lickey,first off ,you need to decide what is the priority,windbreak or euca for harvest,with 3 rows you can plant at the close spacings I posted earlier or you could do a 3-6-3 feet spacing or even 2-4-6, it depends on what angle from the rows the prevailing wind comes.

You could harvest row 1 at 4yrs ,row 2 at 6 yrs and row 3 at 8 yrs,Papaya grow fairly tall and the wind resistance is all on the top so you need a fairly tall windbreak,so I would be tempted to leave about 1/3 of the euca (the ones that are growing best and have nice straight butts ),the ones you harvest will reshoot from the stumps and be ready to harvest again in about 4 years,leaving some to mature and having some suckering will give a fairly dense windbreak. I would only harvest the older trees when they start to effect the sunlight to your fruit.

They are many studies done in Thailand as to the effect of Eucalyptus on soils ,the ones I have read indicate any ill effect is minimal,a bit of Googling will bring them up, you can read and make a decision.

ozzy

[chownah]

Lickey,

Check out this one for general windbreak design:

http://www.agric.wa.gov.au/servlet/page?_p.../TREENOTE22.HTM

and check out this one for species of eucalyptus that make good wind breaks and a possible problem with growing eucalyptus saw logs as a wind break (lower brances tend to fall off causing gaps in the wind break and allowing "jetting" ).

http://www.agric.wa.gov.au/pls/portal30/do.../TREENOTE23.HTM

[ozzydom]

Lickey,

Check out this one for general windbreak design:

http://www.agric.wa.gov.au/servlet/page?_p.../TREENOTE22.HTM

and check out this one for species of eucalyptus that make good wind breaks and a possible problem with growing eucalyptus saw logs as a wind break (lower brances tend to fall off causing gaps in the wind break and allowing "jetting" ).

http://www.agric.wa.gov.au/pls/portal30/do.../TREENOTE23.HTM

Chownah,If you read my previous posts you would have noticed that I reccomended pruning the lower branches from trees suitable for growing on to mill size, the lower sucker growth of the previously harvested stumps then infills the gap. comprende.

[chownah]

Lickey,

Check out this one for general windbreak design:

http://www.agric.wa.gov.au/servlet/page?_p.../TREENOTE22.HTM

and check out this one for species of eucalyptus that make good wind breaks and a possible problem with growing eucalyptus saw logs as a wind break (lower brances tend to fall off causing gaps in the wind break and allowing "jetting" ).

http://www.agric.wa.gov.au/pls/portal30/do.../TREENOTE23.HTM

Chownah,If you read my previous posts you would have noticed that I reccomended pruning the lower branches from trees suitable for growing on to mill size, the lower sucker growth of the previously harvested stumps then infills the gap. comprende.

Since I did read your previous posts I did notice that you recommended pruning the lower brnaches form trees suitable for growing on to mill size and suggesting that the lower sucker growth of the previouslyi harvested stumps then infills the gap....and I do understand it, thank you.

Since you can not read my mind, I am sure that you are not aware of the fact that when I was typing in my previous post (the one you have presented here) I was thinking that Ozziedom had already anticipated this problem and had suggested a solution. Not wanting to plant a windbreak in the near future I did not read the article in its entirety and was not sure if what it said completely agreed with you in every way or if its advise was slightly different from yours...or if it might actually have additional information that you did not include in your post...so....just as a heads up to Lickey....I included the sentence about "jetting" and where to find information about it so that Lickey would look there to possibly learn something new and/or to get confirmation and corroboration of what you had said previously. comprende?

Edited August 4, 2007 by chownah

[Lickey]

Ozzy,Chownah, thankyou for your input and info, i dont think jetting would be a problem at this stage of the PPs {papaya} growth, where i need a windbreak the PP are near 2 mtrs tall, and i think that next March they will come to the end of economical growth, ie, to tall and small for current market demand.

What made me think of a windbreak in the first place is the fact that 5 rai are exposed to the wind and 4 rai are well sheltered behind tamarind trees,bamboo plantation,lamyai and mango trees, these PP are 3 mtrs tall and heavy with fruit, during the dry season, every tree gets an equal amout of water from sprinklers, and fertilizer. Thats the burning question in my mind, why are the sheltered PP doing better?does the wind upset the root formation or something?ok, the wind can blow new flowers off ect, but to stunt growth?

Thanks, Lickey.

PS last nights wind and storm took down 7 pp trees..

[ozzydom]

Ozzy,Chownah, thankyou for your input and info, i dont think jetting would be a problem at this stage of the PPs {papaya} growth, where i need a windbreak the PP are near 2 mtrs tall, and i think that next March they will come to the end of economical growth, ie, to tall and small for current market demand.

What made me think of a windbreak in the first place is the fact that 5 rai are exposed to the wind and 4 rai are well sheltered behind tamarind trees,bamboo plantation,lamyai and mango trees, these PP are 3 mtrs tall and heavy with fruit, during the dry season, every tree gets an equal amout of water from sprinklers, and fertilizer. Thats the burning question in my mind, why are the sheltered PP doing better?does the wind upset the root formation or something?ok, the wind can blow new flowers off ect, but to stunt growth?

Thanks, Lickey.

PS last nights wind and storm took down 7 pp trees..

Lickey, Just a personal observation for your thoughts,some time back I propogated some Papaya from the seeds of a particularly tasty fruit we bought, some were planted out singly around the place but I put 7 plants close together (3foot apart) with the intention of thinning them to the stronger plants, but they all grew well so I just left them alone,

Some of the single trees have been flattened by wind and the ones that survived are tall and spindly with poor fruit,whereas the clump are all stronger/sturdier and with much better fruit and have suffered no wind damage.

Papaya are pretty tender plant with poor (as in holding strength) root system,which would indicate that perhaps they would do well planted as clumps.

We used to think that apples should be grown as stand alone trees, but the advent of trellising at close spaces has resulted in strong trees with better quality fruit.

[Lickey]

Ozzy, good info on the "saftey in numbers" idea, obviously its to late to do this with the older trees, but i have a golden oppurtunity to do this on the new plantation, as its near time to thin down to one plant, i will leave all the border plants intact, and perhaps some rows that are not intercropped with banana, to me, that would seem a more profitable windbreak than euca, probaly because we are geared up for PP and make good sales, [trying to keep on topic here ]

Now, is this an old wives tale or not, you cant plant the same crop for 3 years in the same place? ideas and info appreciated anybody,

Thanks, lickey.