Current Price Of Corn (maize)

[kupsu]

Do you have any idea how much farmers get per kilo nowadays for corn?

Have some webpages where can check prices?

[SAP]

I was told it is up over 8 baht now in many places.

[xbusman]

I am getting quoted from 10.50 baht for bulk to 15 baht from CP, dried and bagged.

Anyone know some farmers wanting to sell?

[slapout]

The hill tribe farms north of Chiang Dao have a larger amount of corn planted this year (it appears) along highway 107. They sell by the truck load right out of the field. You may want to contact them for your needs.

[rice555]

Hello all, what type of corn??? feed, seed or sweet?

rice555

[xbusman]

For me, feed corn is fine.

Any idea what the hill tribe folks are charging per kilo? I am wondering if its worth sending a truck up for.

Thanks

[slapout]

Dont know answer to your question on price. If you know anyone in that area maybe they could ask around, it may already be contracted, but may be worth checking out

[wdrk7]

So does anyone know what is the farm price for dried corn or purchase price by big company like CP .

[Maizefarmer]

The value/price/cost of feed corn is dependant on the kernel moisture content - it can be as low as Baht 3-4, or as high as Baht 12 - 14.

The price prices exponentialy against you (as the seller) from 16% upwards (as it cannot be stored for long this wet). Leave it on the cob and in the field to if possible to it drops to around 8%.

Best prices (if you are selling) are to be had in the middle/late part of the dry season.

[catwho]

we got 7.17 a kilo for ours in pak chong,they offered 10 baht for very dry at 15%... ours was 20% dry hence the 7.17,last year we got 5.8 a kilo but it was too wet.

cat

[wdrk7]

Could anyone help on how to test the moisture content ?

[Khonwan]

Could anyone help on how to test the moisture content ?

Maizefarmer describes the standard DIY method here: http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?s=...t&p=2094093

Rgds

Khonwan

[wdrk7]

Will try it at the end of the season . thanks .

[WatersEdge]

This thread is now some months old,

It was last posted in August,

just before the beginning of Corn harvest in the North

But to offer any who may want Corn,

I have 300 tons to sell,

and can readily obtain more.

The market price can be monitored daily

http://www.dit.go.th/diteng/image/hi_4_50.jpg

26 November 2008 the Feedmill quotation is B7.58/kg dry kernel corn.

Based on that market price,

I will bag and ship in 25 ton full truck loads to anywhere required.

Depending on distance and season truck demand, the freight will vary,

but rule of thumb figure B1.00 per kg on 500 km distance

From September through December, Corn trucks are busy, so they won't offer bargains.

In the off season they will haul much more eagerly.

Adding B1.00 to the Market Quote for bag & handle at my barn

and Freight as quoted at time of hauling

I have a hammermill which can handle a truckload per week

so add another B1.00 for cracked corn

For longer term planning,

Planting is Mid May

Harvest starts late August and extends into October

Delivery of truckload lots can be as early as late September

For those who would arrange their own transport

Barn Location is 110 km north of Mae Sot on highway 105

on Moei River / Burma border

[Maizefarmer]

You serious - Yes - always interested in alternative dry seed. How is it you come by 300ton of the stuff??

Questions - as always when buying bulk corn seed:

1) How old - when was it harvested?

2) Any mold - and mold at all (will do a deep pile test)?

3) Temp - have you guys been monitoring bulk temp and kept a record?

4) How is stored - in mounds in a shed with pvc tubing pushed down?

5) ..... and the all important one: current moisture content?

if I was to purchase delivery would be bulk (no bags).

Drop me a pm with details.

Thanx

MF

[slapout]

Wife said the people who planted corn after rice harvest, where as she planted beans, were being offered 2 baht/kilo. This is in Fang area for anyone with a interest.

[dave_boo]

Can I ask a question?

What type of yields are the corn farmers getting? I've got some land I just purchased in western Nakhon Sawan (so those with similar soils will be given weight in the average) and I was wondering what to expect off it. Where I grew up we usually got 125+ bushels an acre (1 Bushel= ~56lbs so about 1270 kg per rai). While I don't expect to hit the same number in LOS, especially when reconditioning the soil the first few years, what can I expect? I came across a link on USDA's website that was predicting 3920 kg/hectare (627 kg/rai) which seemed low to me.

Am I expecting too much, or is 750 kg/rai a real possibility with proper care?

[Khonwan]

Can I ask a question?

What type of yields are the corn farmers getting? I've got some land I just purchased in western Nakhon Sawan (so those with similar soils will be given weight in the average) and I was wondering what to expect off it. Where I grew up we usually got 125+ bushels an acre (1 Bushel= ~56lbs so about 1270 kg per rai). While I don't expect to hit the same number in LOS, especially when reconditioning the soil the first few years, what can I expect? I came across a link on USDA's website that was predicting 3920 kg/hectare (627 kg/rai) which seemed low to me.

Am I expecting too much, or is 750 kg/rai a real possibility with proper care?

Got your PM. We always get 900-1,000kg/rai (as do most of our village neighbours).

[Maizefarmer]

You can get up to 1800kg's per rai - I average around 1400 - 1600 per rai/per crop x 3/12 and then the follwoing year 2/12 - all at around 16% - but thats my primary feed crop and its with very intensive management (very intensive!).

Is that yield viable - Yes and No.

yes if you are feeding livestock (and offset the input differance against what it would otherwise cost to buy in fresh and ensiled feed), but No if you are selling maizeseed to the local co-op.

Yield per rai means nothing in the absense of moisture percentage - so what are the mositure figures?

[dave_boo]

Thanks for both answers, very informative.

Khonwan, as stated earlier I'm going to give your response more weight since the soil types are very similar due to proximity (although not distance as I've found out in those long rides up to your pad).

Maizefarmer; I'm not sure where your farmland is, but I did understand that you were the resident expert on corn production. I can not ensure intensive management at this time, so I definitely don't expect those yields. Also we were looking at 2x crops per year, not sure how much this will help with the moisture content. My experience with corn has been in Ohio which means that we planted it, cultivated it a few times, and then harvested it after it was very dry. It's also been quite a few years (actually a decade or so), so a lot of the stuff I remember could be wrong and I'm definitely sure that there's been advances in that time frame.

Just for a point of reference; the in-laws have 50 rai of fairly poor farmland (sandy with a lot of rocks). This last season they planted corn on it and got some 25 metric tonnes. They were estatic about that yield, in fact it was one of the best they've had due to the much more copious application of fertiliser and pesticides. This is purely a cash crop, and will be sold to the local co-op.

[Maizefarmer]

I'm up in Loei

Yer - thats the big issue: soil quality - the best area for maize soil in Tahialnd is the central plains around Saraburi, and then as you climb out past the cement factory to the top of the ridge, on past Muek Lek thru to Pak Chong - which interestingly, is also the best area for beef and diary.

Most maize is harvested dry for the seed - you have to wait till its dry else the combine just chews all the kernals up. I harvest nearly all mine wet - with a forage harvester for fresh feed and silage.

750kg per rai is feesible and realistic for maize seed - just get the timing right (i.e. so you do not have to throw money at irrigation).

[Maizefarmer]

.... to add a bit more to the above - was a bit rushed earlier (usually in bed and asleep by 7:30 - 8pm at latest, but calving has come on about 2weeks earlier than expected - so lots of all night work to do):

Stony soil is not neccasserily a negative with maize fields (and many other crops types as well) - while its heavy wear on discs, it can and does help loads with drainage in many soil types.

An average of 500kg per rai is not to be laughed at - indeed, depending on the economics it can actually be considered a good figure.

What I touched on in the earlier comment regards "is a (any) yield figure good or bad, or viable or not", comes down to a bunch of factors. I can yield 3 x that - possibly even 4, but, the figure by its self is rather meaningless. It needs to be viewed against the background of production costs e.g. to realise the figures I gave above may sound impressive, but if its at the expense of irreverisable (or long time to receover) soil damage for future crops, or at the expense of input costs that result in a net margin that is half what it costs to realise 500kg p/rai, then quite frankly, as good as that figure looks/sounds, it's actually a pointless figure and doesn't make economic sense.

The same thing with diary cattle - I can (and actually tried once with few head in my eager and over-enthusiastic days!!!) import high yielding cows that will yield 50litre plus per milking per head - but they have to be kept in an air-conditioned shed 24/7. It was a complete faliure! Nothing cruel about it, when you understand that the average diary cow spends around 85% of its time lying down - it needs to to produce milk and stalled dairy cattle, when and where it is used, has proven to be very successfull - if energy costs are factired in to the books correctly before hand. In Thailand the problem is quite simply that the heat and humidity versus ideal h/h enviroment for diary cows is just so vast that energy costs throw the economics out the window completly - you could just just get away with it from an anual cost accounting approach, but you'd never recover the capital outlay ......... and free solar energy is not vaible either: the amperage requirements for the compressors would mean literally hundreds of 200watt solar panels and lots of lots used submarine deep cycle batteries (price that out for Thailand - have pace maker close at hand!!)

By contrast, when a small time Thai diary farmer says his cow is only producing 10litres of milk per day (5 per milking - and thats a very realistic, if not rather decent figure for small/mdeium sized rural Thai dairy farms), its meaning-less figure from a "business point of view", unless he explains what its costing him to maintain the cow to produce that yield.

The pobelm with yield figures related to crops is no-less multifacited, in that as time goes on, unless the soil is managed with future usage kept in mind, inputs will continue to rise (well, they will in any case truth be told), while the yield starts to and carries on dropping - and from season to season that drop will become larger larger.

This is almost certainly going to be the case with your parents in law 50rai - unles they can get to grips with the cost inputs & soil management versus yield.

I know nothing about pigs, chickens, fruits, veggies (accept a couple of the Thai veggie crops) ect etc...... but, I know my subject when it comes to forage crops and cows - so let me ask you a few questions with a view to sharing some advise for future maize farming, regards controlling costs and keeping the yield up.

1) What type of soil is it - just describe it as best as poss (e.g. colour - red/brown or black, heavy or light, crumbly or solid, drainage - does it drain well or does it become water logged)?

2) Is irrigation used, or is the crop reliant on rain, or a mixture of both rain & irrigation? - from what you have said I'm guessing its rain reliant (?) As a side note, was by any chance a record of how many days of rain occured over that crop cycle kept?

3) Do you know what seed type/hybrid was planted? and can you ask why/how it was decided to plant the hybrid they did plant?

4) What fertiliser type was used? and what was the regime i.e. included at time of the seed, or shortly afterwards, and did they re-fertilise again 30 days (or 60) after germination - and was that fertilser the same type or a different fertiliser mix/ratio......... and lastly, how much per rai was used?

5) Exactly how many days from planting to harvesting? - if not sure can you find out if it was less or more than 90days?

6) Land prep prior to planting - how was it prep'd? - I presume they disc'd the land (nearly all folk do - and have to), but some folk also cross-cut anything from 5 days to 2 weeks afterwards. Was it cross-cut? (cross-cutting is ploughing again - the 2nd time round at 90degrees to the first cut)

7) Lastly, that all important question: 500kg average per/rai - do you know what the moisture percentage was at time of sale?

Depending on the answers you come back with (no rush - if its takes a couple weeks to collate all that info from them, fine - I'll still be here, so take your time), I think you guys could get that yield up to around the high 700's to mid 800's - with no additonal cost input!

MF

[farmerjo]

Hi all,

Sent the mrs to chumphae today with some samples of nk38 and 919 to be moisture tested.

The lady refused to sample it but said the price was 6.5 baht and you dont lose to much if its wet.

Does anyone else have this problem or are most traders willing to test it for you.

The other matter is the price to have it picked,2 years ago she paid 30 baht for the big sack.

This year her corn grew 1 big cob and 1 smaller cob per plant and shes being told that 60 baht is the going rate for a big sack(nearly twice as big as fertilizer sack).

This picking price sounds over the top to me,what do you pay to have your corn picked??

Thanks

[Maizefarmer]

You don't loose much if its wet ..............???

Financialy - no, that is correct you will not loose too much.

Heres an over simplified explination (the figures are not bang on, but this example explains quite well what is going on in terms of weight versus earning):

If you sell 1kg of maize seed at 10% moisture you will get say Baht 10. If you then sell 1kg of the same seed at 20% moisture, you will get say Baht5.

If you were to count how many maize seeds there were in each 1kg, you would find there was approx half the amount in the 1kg with a high mositure percentage.

In other words - you are earming roughly the same amount in each case - the differance in weight is not made up for in actual maize material content, but in water.

In reality, its not an exact 1 for 1 eqaution, but a sliding scale that slightly favours the farmers' earnings the drier the corn seed is. So in that respect she was more or less correct, but there are some other issues related to maize seed moisture content that are important.

If its too wet, trader wont buy the stuff - it'll rot in his warehouse. Generally above 16% quality becomes an issue - unless they have a large yard to spread it out on to dry.

All traders test for moisture - they have to. May not make much differance when its a few bags, but if youre a farmer sending a dozen 5ton - 10ton trailer on the back of a tractor to the yard over a 1week harvesting priod, that "sliding scale" reffered to earlier, quickly add up to a 5 figure sum of money, and depdning on how many farmers the wholesaler is bying from, by the end of the season the figure for the dealer coul dbe running into millions of Baht.

A more accurate way of putting it, is to relate it to overall weight of the corn seed been sold: the larger the quantity the more important it is to sell the stuff at as low a moisture percentage figure as possible.

Moisture content also determines how long the seed can be stored for e.g.

Drop the mositure figure of 919 from 14% to 13% and it will store for roughly double the time it can be stored for at 14%. At 11% it will store for around 7 to 8 x longer.

Alternatively, drop the storage temp of 919 (@ 14%) from from say 30degree C to 25degree C and it will store for as long as 919 (@13%) stored at 30degree C - and we are talking about storage timeframes measured in years, not weeks or months!

So moisture is very important - it is the numero uno factor for traders in deciding what to pay farmers

Take 100grams, mash it up with a mortar & pestal and process it through a microwave - that will give you as close as damnit a moisture figure (+/- a couple percent) - then go round to the wholsalers in your area and ask them what they are paying. They could't care what hybrid type it is - and also ask them what their "sliding scale" is worth - then gang up with other farmers in the area and sell it as one large lot. If its a few trailor loads worth, it'll be worth it.

Baht60 per sack - sounds a little high to me - I don't know the exact figure picked by hand (as mine all goes through a combine or a forage harvester), but the Baht 60 per sack sounds high to me - Baht30 plus sounds more realistic.

NK38 and 919 - were both hybrids producing one large and one small cob?

What colour were the kernals - white/whitish or yellow

What size were the kernals of each hybrid?

How long were the plants allowed to grow - less than or more than 90days?

What fertilser did you you - when and how much per rai?

Soil type - dark, light, heavy/clay like or light and sandy?

Any idea how many kg's per rai you guys got (or how much alltogether)?

..... then I can share some ideas with why this was happening

[farmerjo]

Both varieties have large vand small cobs.

Planted 15th march on medium to heavy clay.

8.5 RAI worked twice,seeded with thai seeder 600mm spacings at 3 kilo per rai and 40kg 16-20-0,followed up with a mix of 1 litre of paraquat and 600 grams of triazine 4 days after planting and 46-0-0 spread after 35 days at 35 kilos per rai.

18 iches of rain for its growing season,yet to be harvested,kernals a yellow colour.(dont know yeild at this stage)

Pictures 2-3 weeks old

[altman]

this is a bit off topic, but maybe useful anyway...

this is now late june. we planted feed/seed corn in early may. doing nicely i think.

as we have several small plots instead of a single large area, all the work is done by hand. many villagers get together to help each other out. this is good as it is 'free', but it also means that planting is done over a fairly long period of time.

we were the first this year since i had roto tilled several times and the ground was ready. other plots we have were planted later and did not have much cultivation done. next year we will do more cultivating before planting.

i did manage to get the locals to plant in actual rows on the cultivated field this year and i think everyone agrees the crop looks better than last year. generally they stagger around a field with 'hoes' to pluck a hole in the ground and someone follows behind throwing seed into it. they use 2- 3 seeds per hole.

this is my first question: is it necessary to use 2 - 3 seeds per hole? now we will frequently have several plants growing right up next to each other. seems a waste, but i don't know.

we rely entirely on rainfall for water. last year the rain stopped a bit early so some of our neighbors who had planted a second crop suffered with very poor yields. we can get water from a stream, but it is a long pump uphill so i don't consider it a viable option.

land depletes it's natural nutrients over time as crops are grown. fertilizer is used to offset this. it is also known that certain crops can help to replenish the soil. i think that 'beans' are one of those crops which, when planted in rotation with corn, will cause a slower depletion of the soil.

we grow 'long beans' in the garden. in another thread a reference was made to 'mung beans', but don't know anything about them. in america i had a friend who grew dry 'kidney beans'.

this is my second question: do beans help with the soil when planted in rotation? which kind of beans? how water dependent are they? well maybe more than one question there. add in peanuts as i think i heard they were good also.

i did not participate in the sale of last years crop so don't know how much they got or what the moisture content was. i hope to have some input this year though so may be able to report back on the results then.

[WatersEdge]

In response to the preceding post by Altman,

I suppose I am departing from the original thread topic of corn prices even more

Corn Planting

It is not necessary to plant several seeds per hole,

actually it is counterproductive

as the plants are competing with each other from day one.

Each plant has its own root zone.

If the intent is to guarantee a full stand,

after pests take their share, or if poor seed doesn't germinate

then it's better to just plant on a tighter spacing.

I plant my corn on 20 cm grid,

which is 4X the optimal population of 40 cm grid for irrigated corn.

I say irrigated, because if you have optimal water and fertilizer,

then sunlight is your limiting growth factor.

That is, Each plant requires so much sunlight on its leaves,

to produce a full yield of grain.

The local spacing for rainfall only corn is around 60 - 70 cm rows,

with around 30 cm plant spacing in that row, which amounts to a 45 - 50 cm grid.

The advantage of a tight population is that the corn leaf canopies very early,

beating any weeds that didn't grow faster than the corn.

If you are using hand labor, then you can cut out 2 rows of 4, or 3 rows of 4,

after the corn has canopied, and the remaining plants thrive to grow grain.

Fertilizer is key, I use 1,400 kg/ha of 15-15-15,

ideally 1/3 applied under the seed in the furrow

1/3 at around 30 days by hand broadcast or sprinkler injection

1/3 at around 60-70 days by sprinkler injection

It's a real shame we don't have crop duster aircraft in Thailand,

as they apply heavy fertilizer loads very fast, uniformly, and without touching the ground

Corn uses roughly equivalent weights of Nitrogen and Potash,

with roughly half that amount of Phosphate

The difference of corn with optimal full fertilizer is dramatic.

You can put in the right seed, have the right rain, do all the right labor,

but if the plant has not enough food, it still is scrawny.

As strict logic, it makes no sense to tread the entire field for half the return.

Hard to explain to local farmers, but fertilizer is not an unbearable expense.

It is rather the easy and cheap path to twice the generally expected yield.

I consider no residual nutrients in the soil,

and fertilize every crop for a full yield.

Here in Mae Sot we have zero Phosphorous natural soil content,

and "less than zero" on neglected overfarmed ground

Since I am in only the second year of farming this ground,

I'm playing catchup on Phosphate soil profile.

But my second year corn is absolutely fabulous

We are late at the first silage harvest, thinning half the population at 50 - 70 days

and the concept is working beautifully.

I should say, this completely depends on a reliable labor force,

as you cannot cut out rows in a field by machine

The other consideration, mentioned by MaizeFarmer above,

growing corn with irrigation and fertilizer

is not feasible if you are selling the grain to the bulk market.

It is wonderfully feasible only if you are feeding all plant matter,

forage and grain, or silage chopped when full of wet grain,

to your own livestock operation.

In a Corn Plant nearing harvest,

still green but with grain at physiological maturity

roughly half the available food value is contained in the grain,

and half in the rest of the plant

When farmers harvest only the grain,

all that potential animal feed benefit in the plant melts back into the soil for next year.

Herein is the wisdom of MaizeFarmer's method of chopping the entire plant to silage or green fresh forage.

Silage does require more preparation for storage than dry grain,

at 70% water weight, and bulk density of around 900 kg/m3

you must pack it in an airtight bunker or container, otherwise it will spoil to black slime,

as any other wet pile of grass clippings.

Variations on storage methods abound,

but here's my solution based on locally available materials

Precast concrete rings, B185 each delivered to my farm.

1.20 m nominal diameter x 0.40 m high,

Two rings high, 0.80 m, mortar sealed,

foot packed tightly layer by layer as the pod is filled squeezing out all possible air

Covered with a heavy clear plastic sheet, weighted for seal at the circumference with wet clay

Each pod contains 700 kg Silage, a manageable volume to be fed to livestock as each pod is unsealed.

There is also a mention above about Corn Moisture penalty.

Granaries in Mae Sot penalize B0.10 / kg for each Moisture Percent above 14.5%

They usually round up that to 15% when calculating the exact penalty.

Thus, last season I forfeited B0.50/kg for Corn that tested at 20% moisture.

It is completely worth the time and effort to dry your grain before delivering,

and the concrete rings mentioned above, are an ideal drying container,

stacked only 3-4 rings high, 4x higher to dry ear corn,

with fan forced air upward through wet grain, from a screen box in the bottom of the bunker

If you intend to store your grain waiting for the market to rebound,

you will also need an airtight bunker to fumigate with Aluminum Phosphide gas,

to kill Corn Weevil, Thai name Mote

After several days of fumigation, Dry corn can then be carefully stored in clean bug free bags.

For those in search of a viable business venture,

Grain Drying / Fumigation service in the rural farm district would pay handsomely,

once Farmers caught on to how much more valuable their dry clean grain is 3 months after harvest.

The detail of grain drying is specific but easily attainable.

Google "North Dakota State University grain drying".

Your other question was on Nitrogen fixing plants.

We need to specify...only Nitrogen is fixed, No Phosphate, Potash or micronutrients

Legumes

Beans of all types

Peanut

Sweet Potato

Pigeon Pea shrubs

Centrosema pubescens vines

Leucaena leucephala trees ....and so forth a long list of plants generally with podded seed

They capture Nitrogen from the Air, which contains 78% N2,

and by a bacteria aided reaction on their root nodules,

a marvelous miracle of life occurs

to store captured surplus Nitrogen into the soil.

Legumes require very little or zero Nitrogen to get started,

produce all their own required Nitrogen for growth

so that too much Nitrogen available in the soil actually causes a lazy plant.

This is a good reason to alternate Nitrogen consuming crops such as Corn,

with Nitrogen fixing plants.

The other reason is to confound pests that would otherwise thrive on one repeated crop

Beans also have different climatic ideals...mentioned below.

Mung Bean are very popular in Mae Sot,

planted by hand in the standing stalks,

just before the air dried ear Corn is harvested by hand,

because they are able to make a full crop on intermittent generally low rainfall.

Beans in general are drought tolerant,

as contrasted to Corn.

Mung Bean takes all available soil moisture, and accepts any late showers in October and November,

to make a second harvest in November & December.

I planted Mung Bean on a small corner of a sandy field

carelessly hand scattered very densely over the entire area

on 22 April, irrigated until rain began, saw it thrive beautifully to a solid green sea

then watched it suffer a leaf fungus when heavy rain and continually damp conditions came.

Mung Bean forage is so high in protein, that destructive organisms will overwhelm it in conditions too prosperous.

The dry bean hay, blown into two presorted piles by the threshing machines,

leaf and pod in the near pile

coarse stems in the far pile

are both fabulous animal feed

if gathered under dry cover before any unseasonable rains cause it to immediately mold

Local farmers neglect its considerable value, much to my eager benefit.

[altman]

following on the mung bean thing...

yes. i know. hi jack. sorry. but this is good info, right? otherwise i'd just send him a pm.

last year after the corn was harvested by hand, the stalks were left in the ground for me (who me?!) to till under or burn.

if 'mung bean are planted just before corn harvest' then,

1) wouldn't people walking on the new plants be harmful?

and

2) burning and immediate tillage would be out of the question. do they just leave the stalks to stand until after the mung bean harvest?

and as a further bit of knowledge. last year, those leaves and stalks which every year prior had been burned, were collected and built into rudimentary composting piles. virtually nothing else was done with them. no turn-over-every-thirty-days or anything else. they just lay there.

it took all year but we now have a beautiful pile of fresh rich earth.

[farmerjo]

Picture of corn ready for harvest taken yesterday.

Watersedge,what sort of profit margin per rai are you working on with that amount of fertilizer and manual labour involved and what sort of yeild do you achieve presuming its grown to sell,not for silage?

Thanks,interesting reading.

[Maizefarmer]

Both varieties have large vand small cobs.

Planted 15th march on medium to heavy clay.

8.5 RAI worked twice,seeded with thai seeder 600mm spacings at 3 kilo per rai and 40kg 16-20-0,followed up with a mix of 1 litre of paraquat and 600 grams of triazine 4 days after planting and 46-0-0 spread after 35 days at 35 kilos per rai.

18 iches of rain for its growing season,yet to be harvested,kernals a yellow colour.(dont know yeild at this stage)

Pictures 2-3 weeks old

Farmerjoe - consider the following:

- 8.5 RAI worked twice - thats good (you are cross cutting i.e the 2nd discing @90degree to the 1st?)

- 600mm spacing - is that inter row or intra row (i.e. between rows or between seeds in the row)? - my guess is you can get that down to Inter row 50cm and Intra row 40cm (actaully, you could drop this from 40cm to 30 if you wanted - but not many planters are capable of this spacing - at least find a planter that can offer you 50cm betwen rows).

- 3 kilo per rai (seed) and 40kg 16-20-0 - the rule with heavy/clay soils: get more N down earlier rather than later - so if anything I would increase the Nitrogen on the 1st application, and reduce it on the 2nd application. Reduction in spacing will mean increase in seed per rai - so adjust the fertilser amount as well.

- 1l paraquat and 600grams traizine, 4 days after planting: try this (that weed growth looks pretty dense - and its chewing up around 30% - 40% of your fertilser) - after the 2nd working leave the field for the weeds to develope over say 2 weeks, then spray the paraquat, wait 48hrs then plant, wait days and then apply the triazine. I believe this will reduce your weed growth by around 20% - 30% - and as much as 60% - 80% if you can get some local grannies into the field with their hoes (nows the time to get the weeds down if you are going to do that) at the same time as you apply this 2nd application.

- 46-0-0 spread after 35 days - I think this is a little early - watch for flowering, which is likely anytime from day 45 thru to day 60 (espeically if it rains during this time period - that will be the catalyst for flowering) - nows the time to get that 2nd application down. In any event, hold off to day 45 if you can.

Note - there is no right or wrong about the above farmerjoe, and there are probably other ways of going about it - some could be even better. I am only sharing with you what, from my experiance I believe will give you a larger yield and bigger margin.

Good Luck

Edited June 28, 2009 by Maizefarmer