Farming In Issan-why Not Drill A Well And Harvest Twice?

[alexboy]

I am familiar with the Issan area of Thailand. My first wife had a land near Korat and my present wife have a land in Khon Kaen. In both areas, farmers harvest rice only once a year. They barely make enough money to eat. When there is no rain...the harvest is very bad. They work only a few months of the year.

I went to the local government office once and they told me there are huge amount of fresh water underground (20 to 100 meters). It is apparently everywhere: just like an underground sea! So i asked the officials why don't the farmers drill deep wells to irrigate their land and, this way, they could make two or three harvest a year or even grows fruits, vegetables etc.

They reply to me that this was very much possible to do so but that the farmers were too poor to make this kind of investment. I told them that, despite being poor, they do have pick-up trucks, color TVs, etc so why not make this investment that would double or even triple their revenue? I got no answer to that. At this office, they even had the trucks equipped with drills etc.

So, in light of that....is there someone who have an answer as why almost no one in Issan try to use this way of improving their lives? Is it ignorance? Laziness? Poverty? A lack of imagination? A reluctance to change old ways of living? They cannot live like this. This year, I made this harvest on our land. For 16.3 Rai of land, I got only 36,000 baht! And that is gross revenue. After paying all the expenses, I was left with a meager 16,000 baht!! This is one year revenue!

If i even go to live on our land over there, i would certainly not grow rice. I would drill i good size well and irrigate my land and grow something i can make a good profit of! I would appreciate comments because i am curious to know if "my way" would actually work over there! Thanks to all. Alexboy

[bubbaba]

I am familiar with the Issan area of Thailand. My first wife had a land near Korat and my present wife have a land in Khon Kaen. In both areas, farmers harvest rice only once a year. They barely make enough money to eat. When there is no rain...the harvest is very bad. They work only a few months of the year.

I went to the local government office once and they told me there are huge amount of fresh water underground (20 to 100 meters). It is apparently everywhere: just like an underground sea! So i asked the officials why don't the farmers drill deep wells to irrigate their land and, this way, they could make two or three harvest a year or even grows fruits, vegetables etc.

They reply to me that this was very much possible to do so but that the farmers were too poor to make this kind of investment. I told them that, despite being poor, they do have pick-up trucks, color TVs, etc so why not make this investment that would double or even triple their revenue? I got no answer to that. At this office, they even had the trucks equipped with drills etc.

So, in light of that....is there someone who have an answer as why almost no one in Issan try to use this way of improving their lives? Is it ignorance? Laziness? Poverty? A lack of imagination? A reluctance to change old ways of living? They cannot live like this. This year, I made this harvest on our land. For 16.3 Rai of land, I got only 36,000 baht! And that is gross revenue. After paying all the expenses, I was left with a meager 16,000 baht!! This is one year revenue!

If i even go to live on our land over there, i would certainly not grow rice. I would drill i good size well and irrigate my land and grow something i can make a good profit of! I would appreciate comments because i am curious to know if "my way" would actually work over there! Thanks to all. Alexboy

Very interesting, the part about avaliability of water. I did not know that. I live near Korat and plan to have a well put in to supply water for my pond and garden areas. If your information on water is correct, I should hit water at about 35 meters. My mother in law has a dug well that deep and it still has water in it. But the hole, well, you could get burried alive.

Your reasons for most Thai's not having a well or doing any thing about their sorry situations are probably correct. Hard headed and ignorant is the way I find most. Refuse to change even when they know it is for their own good. And, I might add, they seem to be very happy this way. It is their country, their life, and it is up to them, but, I hate to see people live so poor when simple things could improve their lives and they refuse. My wife is also a hard headed Thai and plans to set an example for them to follow. I hope it works.

I do hope others post their experiences and opinions here. It could be helpfull in helping others.

[Gary A]

How are you going to get the water out of that deep well? Much of the farmland has no electricity and the ones that do need an expensive transformer. A big enough pump to irrigate 15 or 20 rai of land is going to use a LOT of electricity. Add the expensive pump, pipes and electricity and most of the meager profit is gone.

[chownah]

A moderate but low yield for the commonly grown varieties of rice on one rai is about 500 kilo...anything less than 500 kilo from one rai means there was some problem...and even getting 500 means there is room for improvement. A yield of about 600 kilo per rai seems to be considered a good yield. If I get 500 I feel like I was not a failure exactly but a wonder what I did wrong...if I get 600 I'm pretty happy and consider that I must know what I'm doing.

Let's assume you got 500 kilo of rice per rai. This last season the price for sticky rice was over 8 baht per kilo....I don't recall what it was for steam rice but I think it was about 7 baht per kilo. Let's assume you grew steam rice and sold for 7 baht per kilo....then you got 3,500 baht per rai and for 16.3 rai you would have received 57,000 baht. EVen if you only got 400 kilo per rai and received 6 baht per kilo you would have received 39,000 baht for the 16.3 rai.

I don't know what happened on your land but I'm just trying to show that the general expectation for 16.3 rai would be considerably more than you achieved.

As for pumping water....from that depth I think it would be too expensive for growing rice. Pumping water for other crops might work depending on the depth of the water and the profit margin for the crop. The nice thing about growing rice is that it is easy to sell and it keeps very well........on the other hand vegetable crops require alot of marketing unless you want to sell a bulk harvest to some middle man in which case the price will be so low that pumping water might reduce profits to zero...or nearly. If you pump water you really need to be a business person to make it profitable I think and of course the deeper the water the more it costs not only for drilling the well and buying the pump but also for the ongoing cost of electricity to pump it.

Chownah

[D-MAX]

We have a deepwell pump at about 130 meters depth.

Costs about 180.000 bath four years ago. And additional costs for powerlines to the pump.

we installed it for refreshing and adding water to the fishponds.

But using the pump is expensive because of electricity costs.

You should also check the quality of the water for salinity.

Due to evaporation your soil could become salty with the result that you can't grow anything.

[Joe Walshe]

This topic is very interesting to me. Would it be viable to install a wind powered pump I wonder. This seems to be the preffered option in parts of the States and Aus.

[fruity]

This topic is very interesting to me. Would it be viable to install a wind powered pump I wonder. This seems to be the preffered option in parts of the States and Aus.

A better bet Joe would be solar powered, however, I think this would be expensive to set up for the power you'd need? I know someone who has a pump powered by a big poweful diesel truck engine, pumps out an amazing volume of cubic metres per hour, which, for something like this project you need.

As touched on by DMAX, this undertaking is not a cheap one. The volume of water that would be required to grow rice especially in the dry season is immense, therefore, the well has to be a 'super duper' job & the pump has to be almighty powerful. We are not talking about a borehole to pump up a thousand litres per day here!

Any such undertaking would have to be considered a very long term investment, the financial benefits from the extra crops have to be set aside the initial expenditure & ongoing fuel costs.

[slapout]

Windmill for pumping water are limited on depth (due to weight of sucker rod conected to pump, etc) and volume. Windmills can provide enough water to handle a few head of cattle but not irrigation of crops. The solar powered pumps that I saw used in the US had about the same limitation as the windmill systems, volume wise. The large irrigation pumps used for 160 acre +_ used to run on natural gas as it was so cheap compared to diesel fuel. A 5 hp gasoline engine driving a 3 inch pump consumes about 100 baht of gas per Thai working day (6 to 7 hours), my experience. Tough to made profit selling 4 or 5 baht a kilo veggies with this kind of expense, plus labor, fertilizer, whiskey, lost and damaged tools etc. In the area where I have land (Fang) irrigation is used for fruit trees during dry season when Govt supplied water is not avaliable. A irrigration system requires maintance, not a piroity of note in Thailand, also it helps to have someone who will be experienced or will listen and follow instructions and is dependable. Lots of luck finding these traits in the local labor pool. I do not expect to see Thailand utilize the land nor maximamize the production in my lifetime, sad really, only education of the farmers will contribute to this, and they have to work, not go to school, and they can not afford to educate their sons.

[chownah]

I want to point out that mechanical only (no use of electricity) wind pumps can pump from very deep wells. On the internet it is suggested that they can pump from in excess of 100 metres.

Chownah

Edited February 9, 2008 by chownah

[Gary A]

I want to point out that mechanical only (no use of electricity) wind pumps can pump from very deep wells. On the internet it is suggested that they can pump from in excess of 100 metres.

Chownah

Wind power is great if you have the wind. Here in Loei province we normally don't have enough wind to ruffle a flag much less turn a wind mill.

[Boksida]

I have drilled several hundred wells in the north-east and an extremely low percentage of these have had the quantity or quality of water required for irrigation. There have been some decent wells in one area of Nakorn Ratchasima and a small area in Maha Sarakam. Most of the Khorat Plateau is underlain by massive rocksalt deposits and the salinity increases with depth and pumping rate.

Windmills have been used in the north-east but as Slapout pointed out, they are really only useful for watering stock rather than irrigation.

[bannork]

I think the OP would be better off excavating a decent sized pond and use the water obtained in the rainy season for dry season irrigation. If he places it uphill enough to use gravity it could help reduce costs too.

[egg]

l heard that if someone was setting up a farm and had somebody living on it , the government would supply and install a solar panel (approx 2mtX1mt),dont know if they do any more than that tho ,,like supply a pump also ,, now that would be a good deal

cheers

egg

[pnustedt]

As Chownah pointed out, the returns from the op's rice harvest do seem low - here in Sisaket the price for steamed rice was over Bt9/kilo in Nov. (harvest time) and is now over Bt12.

Some farmers do grow two crops/yr near here, they plant a quick growing variety by hand, but the yield/harvest is less than you would get from a single annual harvest, so don't assume that from two harvests you double your money - far from it.

We grow one crop/yr and on some of our land we plough and grow intermediate crops, such as marrows and melons, irrigating them from fish ponds, this in addition to chillie beds, egg plants, tomatoes, etc. provides a steady income during the quiet season.

[chownah]

As Chownah pointed out, the returns from the op's rice harvest do seem low - here in Sisaket the price for steamed rice was over Bt9/kilo in Nov. (harvest time) and is now over Bt12.

Some farmers do grow two crops/yr near here, they plant a quick growing variety by hand, but the yield/harvest is less than you would get from a single annual harvest, so don't assume that from two harvests you double your money - far from it.

We grow one crop/yr and on some of our land we plough and grow intermediate crops, such as marrows and melons, irrigating them from fish ponds, this in addition to chillie beds, egg plants, tomatoes, etc. provides a steady income during the quiet season.

Pnustedt,

I'm wondering about the 12 baht per kilo price for steam rice. I've never heard of it getting even close to that figure around here and I'm wondering why since rice prices should be pretty much the same everywhere in Thailand I think. Do you know exactly who is paying that price and exactly what kind of rice receives that price? I'm assuming that the price you quote is for paddy rice and not milled rice.

Chownah

[pnustedt]

Pnustedt,

I'm wondering about the 12 baht per kilo price for steam rice. I've never heard of it getting even close to that figure around here and I'm wondering why since rice prices should be pretty much the same everywhere in Thailand I think. Do you know exactly who is paying that price and exactly what kind of rice receives that price? I'm assuming that the price you quote is for paddy rice and not milled rice.

Chownah

Bt12 is the price being paid at a depot a few yards from my house in Sisaket town, they display the price on their gate. I'm sure a few more satang could be got if you shopped around. It's for the normal paddy rice that everyone grows around here. Unfortunately I sold mine at Bt9.75 in November.

[Maizefarmer]

Alex boy – do you know how much water evaporates from a 1600 square meter surface area (approx 1rai) p/day in the average conditions Thailand experiences in the dry season (average conditions means: humidity level, water and/or soil surface tension, air temp, wind speed and number of sunlight hours)?

For a saturated surface (which would be wet field or pond surface with vegetable matter growing in or on its surface to reduce surface tension) and you come up with a figure that various from 7 tons to 11 tons per/day (from a corn field with corn in the 2nd stage of growth it is just over 8 000litres)

With that in mind now take the cost of sinking a well with to a depth deep enough, and with a diameter large enough to lift the volume of water needed to cultivate and sustain how ever many rai it is one has to grow before rice becomes a viable crop in any event (what would that be, I personally don’t know – something like 5rai and a bit).

….. and you will find: within 2 or 3 weeks the cost of the energy used to lift the required volume of water (whether before cultivating or to sustain the crop during cultivation) will have chewed up the profit margin, which in any event is not much to start with. In short, the figures wouldn’t add up.

Edited February 9, 2008 by Maizefarmer

[slapout]

Alexboy; contact boksida if you want to consider a drilled well. He has vast knowledge in Thailand and may be familiar with your area. I would trust him much more than the local 'experts' who drill and repair hosehold wells. I once dug a pond to supply water for dry season, as locals told me there was no water sand to drill to. When we got to 4 meters we hit a water sand and could dig no deeper. (sand kept falling in on us. Drilled a well in center of farm (about 300 meter form pond) drilled through about 4 meter of sand and got into peagravel. ran casing about 2 meter into peagravel and viola have a irrigation well with good fresh water (drinkable) The neighbors deemed me the expert for a year, but they learned it all up, so my fame quickly went by the wayside. It was great when they would come and watch a 3 inch stream of water in dry season, ask questions about depth, flow rate etc. First time Thais furnished the whiskey for me to drink without asking for money to pay for it. (kidding)

[ozzydom]

There would appear to be a few misconceptions posted re rice yield in Thailand, you cannot compare yields in the Northern Plateau and the majority of Issan,where soil types , fertility, weather,water availability are totally different.

Studies over the 1999-2005 period show only minor changes in area planted and average yield,

area sown approx 57million rai, av yield 332kg per rai, the yield ranges from a high of 779 kg on the Northern Plateau and Western Central Plateau down to 254kg per rai in Issan.

Another point is that Off season paddy averages a higher average yield of 679 kg per rai, this higher yield is explained by the fact that most lowland rice is grown to coincide with the wet season and not the best growing season,whereas farmers who have available water grow their off season paddy (or 2nd crop ) in the peak growing season.

A google of Thailand rice+yield+rai will show these studies.

[chownah]

Ozzydom,

Thanks for the info on the rice yields. I've looked at a couple of links your suggested search provided and it was really and eye opener for me. I didn't realize that most rice land in Isaan is not irrigated but just rain fed. This would explain the lower yields. I guess in the future I'll need to qualify my experiece to be for irrigated rice.

Thanks again.

Chownah

[ozzydom]

Ozzydom,

Thanks for the info on the rice yields. I've looked at a couple of links your suggested search provided and it was really and eye opener for me. I didn't realize that most rice land in Isaan is not irrigated but just rain fed. This would explain the lower yields. I guess in the future I'll need to qualify my experiece to be for irrigated rice.

Thanks again.

Chownah

Food for thought isnt it, probably part of the explanation for the real or perceived poverty here in Isaan. One crop per year off an average village holding of 3 rai = less than a tonne income per annum and a large family would have to keep 50% of it to sustain themselves.

[D-MAX]

About 20 years ago I red an article about about the poverty of Isaan farmers.

The article also said that a lot of the soil was wasted because the wellwater used for irrigation contained to much salt.

This caused a too high level of salinity in the topsoil.

This land couldn't be used anymore for growing rice or other crops.

Anybody heard about this?

When we had our well drilled the "waterman" gave us a price for a well at 150 m depth.

He garanteed that there would be certain cub. meters per hour.

if there was no water, we would pay him 50.000 bath for his effort.

Then he walked around our land with his "divining rod" till he found the spot where he was going to drill.

He build his drillingrig and started drilling with his four man crew for 24 hours a day.

It took about 10 day to finish.

He stopped at 130 meters because it was to hard to drill any further.

Then he lowered our pump and let it run from morning till evening using his own generator to proof we were getting the amount of water we asked for.

After testing everything was installed.

We had to place concrete poles to get the powerline from the house to the pump.

The pump you can get at the larger hardware stores.

We have an american brand stainless steel 5 hp pump.

You normally get water at 10 to 30 meters depth, but if you want to pump large amounts of water for a longer time you need to dril 50 to 100 meters below the waterlevel.

A 3 or 5 hp pump will be enough. When your pump sits at 130 meters it only needs to push the water from the groundwaterlevel to the surface.

Our pump delivers about 6-7 cub. per hour.

[mobile69]

The farmers around where I live, San Kamphaeng, east of Chiang Mai, are growing their rice using water from boreholes, pumping day & night. I would guestimate their rice plots to be 5 to 10 rai in size. Normally, the water comes from the Kuang reservoir, but this year it is low, so no water was released into the canal system. Not sure how deep their boreholes are, but I would think not so deep - some even have wells. For power. they just run extension cables for a few hundred metres from the village, supported by bamboo poles. How much groundwater is there & is this sustainable? Hopefully, my 26m borehole for the house is deeper than theirs

[chownah]

Mobile69,

The depth to the water table varies from place to place so there is not general answer to your question. I am developing organic methods for growing rice and one of my strategies is to flood the fields about a month early so that the seeds for plants that grow in submerged conditions will germinate after which I till the field and kill the plants. I tried this last year and it worked really well. I did not use any herbicide and had not problem with weeds (some did grow but not enought to be a problem) and had a very good yield. To implement this I had to pump water from my pond because the irrigation canal authority doesn't provide enough water early enough. It is not prohibitively expensive to do this because the water is about 1 meter below ground level at that time (my ponds have porous bottoms and the water level in the pond is the same as the ground water level)....but.....this is not the case everywhere.

This practice is sustainable in that the rains replenish the groundwater every ear in northern Thailand....sustainability is not a problem here for pumping from shallow wells.....at least from what I can determine.

Chownah

[anthoma]

My GF has 25 rai with ricefields and river/ponds running through it. Here harvest the last two years was approx 150 kg rice pr. rai. I would like to pump water to these ricefields and maybe try to get better harvest and maybe also harvest two times. I will also put fertilizer which i dont think they did the last two years. I argument here for two years now. she and here family sais it not possible, ore we never do. My question is if you have plenty of water in the river/pond all year, Would it be possible to pump water to the ricefields and make profit on it, or will the cost on pumping the water be two high? We have no power near our land so we have to use gasolin/dieselpumps. By the way, what kind of pump is the best and cheapest to use?

[Maizefarmer]

My GF has 25 rai with ricefields and river/ponds running through it. Here harvest the last two years was approx 150 kg rice pr. rai. I would like to pump water to these ricefields and maybe try to get better harvest and maybe also harvest two times. I will also put fertilizer which i dont think they did the last two years. I argument here for two years now. she and here family sais it not possible, ore we never do. My question is if you have plenty of water in the river/pond all year, Would it be possible to pump water to the ricefields and make profit on it, or will the cost on pumping the water be two high? We have no power near our land so we have to use gasolin/dieselpumps. By the way, what kind of pump is the best and cheapest to use?

Anthoma

Irrigation may well increase your net crop yield but I suspect, that when understood correctly against the background of your overall costings’, the amount spent to achieve this extra yield will have tightened your margin considerably and your net profit will ultimately be less.

I do not belive it will be economically viable.

[ozzydom]

My GF has 25 rai with ricefields and river/ponds running through it. Here harvest the last two years was approx 150 kg rice pr. rai. I would like to pump water to these ricefields and maybe try to get better harvest and maybe also harvest two times. I will also put fertilizer which i dont think they did the last two years. I argument here for two years now. she and here family sais it not possible, ore we never do. My question is if you have plenty of water in the river/pond all year, Would it be possible to pump water to the ricefields and make profit on it, or will the cost on pumping the water be two high? We have no power near our land so we have to use gasolin/dieselpumps. By the way, what kind of pump is the best and cheapest to use?

anthoma ,I dont know what area your TGF,s land is in or what type of rice they are growing,but it sounds like sticky rice probably grown from seed saved from last years crop.

If you have river and pond water available, you can irrigate on the cheap with a buffalo driven long tail pump.

I,m sure you could improve yield, (probably dramatically ) by using decent farm practices.

First off I would get last seasons stubble disced under then leave the land in fallow until preparing for next seasons planting,in the meantime get soil analysis done, the local Ag Dept.will advise you how to take the samples then they will do the analysis and advise you of deficiancy,s (if any) and what to apply to rectify any problems.

Then for next season source good certified or improved seed like Hom Mali and go from there.

ozzy

[chownah]

Anthoma,

I suggest you talk to some local farmers who have better success and do some internet research and learn a bit about growing rice. I would not advise putting more water on a rice field unless I knew for sure that there wasn't enough water there.....a rice field need not be flooded all the time and in fact a dry period in the middle of the season at the right stage of growth is recommended while a thoroughly saturated soil is needed for opitmal grain development at other times. There are many things which might need fixing or adjusting and water is just one of them....and even at some times when water is usually advised it is counter productive to have too much....water flowing through the fields needlessly should be avoided because it not only wastes water but washes away nutrients. Lack of fertility obviously should be checked out as suggested already....and there's lots of other things to check out.

By the way....I suspect that at certain growth stages if you could pump water from a depth of a couple of metres it might be profitable to do so but this is only my suspicion and I have no hard data to show this....

Chownah

[anthoma]

Thanks for the tips guys. We certanly have to do things different this year to try to get som better harvest. If not, why bother if we only get 150 kg pr. rai. It dont cover our expences.

And to Ozzydom. You were right. They put sticky rice with seed from last years harvest.

[Maizefarmer]

Yes - you will need to do things differently and taking advise from other farmers in the area is a very good idea as others have suggested.

But let me ask you this question: why do feel water is the cause of your poor crop yield - could it not be some other problem that has resulted in poor growth (e.g. the strain of rice, the fertilisrs used .... and all the other factors involved in cultivating a good rice crop).

In what way was your crop cultivated differently from other farmers around you - was it only the water supply, or are there other factors that were different.

If you are confident that the problem is/was water supply and nothing else, then its a serious problem because off the top of my head I can't see anyway to feasibly pump the water required to make the differance between a profit/loss account for a 25rai area.

If you explain to the forum how or why you feel the problem comes down to water supply, then I think it will help those forum members who understand rice cultivation offer a solution that overcomes the problem of the expense of having to pump extra water.

MF