What To Plant !?

[jubby]

OK , Its finally started raining and I suspect there's a limited window of opportunity to plant something, But What !?.

I've been tidying up and reckon I have about 8 rai available, unproductive Land.

The rest is Teak , and unfortunately, Lamyai with a sprinkling of Mango.

Everyman and his Dog around us is frantically planting Rubber. Can they be wrong , I don't know. I just need to get something in , hate to see a wasted area of land.

[gotlost]

We have about 10 rai that had eucalyptus on it 4 years old. After letting the wife's family do the work and getting paid the wife netted 30,000 baht. It still took another 30,000 total 60K to clears the land. Net profit ZERO. Rubber tress. The rumor is they are expecting a high price this year after so many low years. That's why everyone and their brother are planting rubber. They forget it takes about 5 years to get a descent return from a rubber tree. So back to our 10 rai. Not good for rice. Don'T like eucalyptus. Cane forget it. rubber tress only if your talking 20 rai and time. Bingo FRUIT TREES. Over the pass two months the wife has planted about 120 trees of Mango, Rambutan, Durian, Lamyai, Lychee and Dragon fruit. In between the rows of trees she has planted a corp of Cassava that will be harvested about next April or May. Yes its the rainy season so get that corp in the ground. We have the water for the dry season on the fruit trees. After the cassava is harvested it may or may not go back in. The fruit trees will grow and produce. Some for sell but most for the family to enjoy.

PS. Location Kap Choeng. 60 Kilo south of Surin.

Edited June 24, 2010 by gotlost

[jubby]

I guess I'm just hopeing for an inspirational response before I plant something in the next few weeks. I'm very close to planting some rubber but only because I can't really think of an alternative. I had thought of casava but it would mean getting a plough for my tractor.

Fruit. my friend has a lot of different fruit. but his wife seems to be slogging her guts off between drinking LowKow, while he works abroad. We have lots of mango but I tend to eat as much as I can and then give the rest to the chickens. I really need something low maintenance as I get zero support from her indoors (she visits the farm perhaps once per year and has personally planted Zilch in the 15 years we've been together) and my labours is hit & miss.

Edited June 24, 2010 by jubby

[teletiger]

It depends what you're looking for Jubby. High or low maintenance, are you prepared to put down irrigation, can you sell your own crop? Loads of "ifs".

We normally do 45 rai maize, twice a year. We share 50/50 with a neighbour who does all the work. This year because of the El Nino forecast we decided to diverify and put in 4 rai white corn and 2 rai mixed veg.(coriander, macua puang and tet) Good job we did because our maize crop was very poor. (apparently the Gov are going to reimburse us something ) The prices we got for our corn and veg was excellent. 20 Baht per kilo for the best corn, down to 6 Baht for the sweepings. 140/180 baht for the coriander. Macuas we are still picking.

so now I've decided to take another 4 rai and do some fruit. 2 Rai banana intercropped with papaya. 1 rai dragonfruit, 1 rai mixed citrus. Might even try Pineapples as I can only ever buy crap ones in the market. I've gone for crops that I don't have to wait too long for. Most of the irrigation we bought second hand. What ever sells the best we will just expand the crop area. As with all things selling is the be all and end all. We live fairly close to Pak Chong, so will try the markets there. Also one of our neighbours takes most of his crop into the markets in Rangsit and said we can piggy-back for a small fee.

So, if you're prepared to put in the work and some outlay (if your wife ID address is that land, lots of stuff is free from the local Ag stations) I would recommend a "google farm". A bit of this, a bit of that, see what works and take it from there.

Best of luck.

Regards.

Edit: Whatever you decide....plant coconut. At 10 metre spacing you'll hardly notice them, can intercrop anything and one day you'll thank me.

Edited June 24, 2010 by teletiger

[jubby]

Thanks Teletiger, Unfortunately Its 'Me' not 'We'. Wife doesn't show any interest in it.

I think I'm going to plant some Banana's , Papaya's etc.. A bit of everything. and ofcourse some more teak.

I've tried Coconuts before but they didn't take, must be a knack to it. maybe I'll try again.

[Rinrada]

Been sitting on our little bit of land not doing much over the years (au Natural)but on this occasion have decided to make a start at summit positive and have started with laying down a track of 3 Rai for Palm Oil and will see how it goes.

We have a good stock of all the usual ...teek wood,lamyai,pinapple,tamarind,mangos,bananas etc but we are looking at (in future) maybe trying stuff like walnuts,cherrys,(wifes idea)while I prefer potatoes ,peppers and poss even expand on our bamboo stock....anyway as said Palm Oil ...any feedback...thoughts?