Advice Please re. Farming Isaan Land

[chownah]

I think the tire tanks are made by:

1. Cut off one side wall. Cut it where the side wall meets the tread.

2. Invert the tire. This means to turn it inside out.

3. Pour a concrete base with the bead of the intact sidewall firmly embedded in the concrete...some reinforcement should be used...

[bina]

what is the base that the cement is poured onto?? wood?

this sounds like a doable project during the winter off season here.... just turning the tire inside out seems difficult

[chownah]

For the mold for the base (in cement work it is called the 'form') you could find some clay dirt somewhere and just dig a round hole to the size you need....or if you don't have any clay dirt then dig a hole and line it with bricks or rocks...you could also make a form using a strip of sheet metal pulled around into a curve or a strip of window screen would work too...even a thick newspaper could be used if all else fails. These suggestions have been for a round form to make a round base but you could also make it squarish and they you could just use four sraps of wood. If you use four scraps of wood you could just find a flat patch of dirt and arrange the wood in the shape you want and then just pound some stakes in the ground around the outside of the wood to hold it is in place. Concrete is very easy to work with but I know it seems intimidating to the beginner. If you mix the concrete a bit on the dry side you could probably just put down three or four cm's of concrete, then some reinforcement (fence wire?) , then place the tire bead on the concrete, then pack more concrete inside the tire and around the outside of the bead by hand....no form would really even be necessary. The concrete base doesn't need to be too beautiful unless your animals are fussy about thier drinking aesthetics.

Turning the tire inside out will probably not be too difficult if you cut the one side wall off first. I think if you look at the picture carefully you will see that the inside top of the water tank is the tread of a tire...by tread here I mean the actual part of the tire "where the rubber meets the road"....this means that everything to one side of the tread has been cut off...a hacksaw bland will cut the side wall or what they use here is a rice harvesting knife....a rice harvesting knife has a thin toothed blade and cuts quite aggressively.

I'll bet your Thai friends could do this blindfolded...if they were like the country boys around here.

Chownah

P.S. Since you can probably get tires for free and the concrete needed is such a small amount you could experiment. Try this one first: just cut the tire and invert...place the tire on a flat dirt surface so it is standing on the bead...put about 3 or 4 cm's of concrete inside...put in some pieces of fence wire for reinforcement...put in 3 or 4 cm's more of concrete...your done. It might leak around the edges with this minimal approach..or it might not...if it does you could apply some caulk...or...you could break out the concrete and try again with a more extensive concrete base.

Chownah

Edited July 24, 2006 by chownah

[teletiger]

No cement in these tanks. All rubber. I'll pull one apart and post the pics.

regards

P.S. I hope current events aren't affecting you there Bina.

Edited July 24, 2006 by teletiger

[bina]

hi, chownah,

thanx for the amazingly detailed instructions. yup, my partner can probably do it no problem, but sometime i also like to do things (i hate being the ditzy female on the farm sort of thing).

tele...thanx, no, we are , for once, not in missile range, and i dont think nasralla would be dumb enough to bomb the city of three religiousn (jerusalem and jerusalem area)... i would hope....

btw, am very glad for this thread as saturday i had a great conversation with some korat guys (found some guys on a moshav from same muubaan as boyfriend so went visiting with him) and i was able to discuss the price of cows, etc... they personally dont understand why any woman, especially a farang, would want to work in agriculture if there are other options, but enjoyed the fact that i actually knew what i was talking about... also my thai has improved immensly but it helps to have up to date info from here on the net, they enjoy getting the updates and it allows us all to ahve a good conversation so i dont sit on the side like an idiot.

[Peter Perluka]

hey guy's,

I am planning about to import some Jersey-Holstein Crossbreds from australia. You can check out their website at http://www.clunyexports.com.au/. But i already asked for the price but they didn't gave me coz i wouldn't buy 1000 heads. So i wondered about if some of you guys are interested in these dairy cows. As far as i know these are quality dairy cows. If there are enough interested people we could buy 1000 together and share them...just a thought....Or somebody must be able to tell me where i can buy some nice dairy cows for in thailand and for what price offcourse

Let me know, it might be interesting

Peter

[RamdomChances]

Peter check out this link for a start

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?sh...c=77439&hl=

We are talking a lot about dairy on it. I be wary about importing Jersey-Holstein Crossbreds, it probably wont be cost effective. What sort of operation have you in mind ?

Also if you do a search on something like "farming" there's a lot of stuff already been writen.

RC

[ray23]

Farming can be very danferous to your wallet:

From the Bangkok Post:

" Rubber price drop prompts call for help

Farmers threaten rally, urges govt to step in

WICHAYANT BOONCHOTE

Rubber farmers countrywide will petition Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Thira Sutabutra tomorrow to call for immediate state intervention to arrest the dramatic fall in rubber prices from over 100 baht to just 40 baht a kilogramme over the past few months.

The farmers say they will stage a mass rally if their complaints are not addressed, as the price drop is hurting their livelihoods.

The reduction in rubber prices began in August this year with prices falling sharply from a healthy 104 baht a kilogramme in June, said Perk Lertwangpong, chairman of the Rubber Farmer Cooperatives group.

Factors which had caused prices to plummet include unfair prices charged by middlemen, lower demand and excess supply in both domestic and international markets, he said.

Key rubber buying sectors in China, Japan, and the US have reduced orders due to high stocks with rubber production up on previous years, said Mr Perk.

The government has also done nothing to stimulate rubber sales in Thailand and farmer groups are not in a position to bargain about prices with middlemen, he said.

Without immediate state action to solve the problems, plantations across the South and especially in the Northeast, will be badly affected, he warned.

Many farmers have begun to fell their rubber trees to sell the wood to earn money, said Utai Sonlaksap, chief adviser for the Rubber Farmers Confederation of Thailand.

The government would normally intervene when prices fall below 30 baht a kilogramme. However, Department of Agriculture director Adisak Sreesunpagit said the government would not let the price drop that low.

Mr Adisak met with rubber farmer groups yesterday to discuss their problems.

He also promised to look into the groups' complaint on the unusual difference between the farmers' selling prices and those calculated by rubber exporters at ports on the FOB (free-on-board) basis. The current difference was put at more than 10 baht a kilogramme though it should not be more than five or six baht a kilogramme, Mr Perk added. "