Rubber Trees

[ThaidaGwaii]

Greeting. Anybody had any luck growing a secondary crop between Rubber Trees? Is there more info about this anywhere?

[Mosha]

Sopha testerday said some tappers are asking for 50%. I said for that ours buys the puy etc. Price now at 18 baht

[imokg2g]

Sold kee yang yesterday 21.00 Baht/kg Beung Kan province.

Average yield, 36.70 kg/rai.

Cheers,

J

[Issangeorge]

Greeting. Anybody had any luck growing a secondary crop between Rubber Trees? Is there more info about this anywhere?

When the trees are young, I have seen cassava grown between them, but once they develop an overhead cover I haven't seen a second crop.

[Dakling]

Having ongoing problems with neighbors burning down our trees every winter on one plot of land. I have decided to intercrop with cassava despite our trees being 4+ years old. I am just hoping that leaving casava between the rows will provide some defence to the fires spreading but am unsure how affective it will be. Last winter the neighbors managed to kill about 50 of of 1,000 trees outright and probably damaged another 300. My hope is that the 300 will recover given time but we probably lost a year of growth on the ones who survive and will likely lose more of the damaged trees during the dry season. The damaged trees have yellowed leaves, and scorched trunks with verticle cracks in the blackened bark where I am hoping the tree is trying to heal itself. This year I am planning on clearing all ground cover back from fence lines by 2m or so and I also plan on hiring people to clear all vegitation down to bare earth around evey tree in a 1m radius. It is very frustrating the lack of respect our neighbors have for our land, they burn their rice fields at the end of the dry season every year by lighting fires at dusk and then they go home alowing the fire to go where it will. They often pick a windy day to as the rice straw remnents will burn all that much better on a windy day. This means for us that we get mini-fires starting anywhere that we have dry grass as the burning straw goes airborn and lands on our form.

[imokg2g]

Having ongoing problems with neighbors burning down our trees every winter on one plot of land. I have decided to intercrop with cassava despite our trees being 4+ years old. I am just hoping that leaving casava between the rows will provide some defence to the fires spreading but am unsure how affective it will be. Last winter the neighbors managed to kill about 50 of of 1,000 trees outright and probably damaged another 300. My hope is that the 300 will recover given time but we probably lost a year of growth on the ones who survive and will likely lose more of the damaged trees during the dry season. The damaged trees have yellowed leaves, and scorched trunks with verticle cracks in the blackened bark where I am hoping the tree is trying to heal itself. This year I am planning on clearing all ground cover back from fence lines by 2m or so and I also plan on hiring people to clear all vegitation down to bare earth around evey tree in a 1m radius. It is very frustrating the lack of respect our neighbors have for our land, they burn their rice fields at the end of the dry season every year by lighting fires at dusk and then they go home alowing the fire to go where it will. They often pick a windy day to as the rice straw remnents will burn all that much better on a windy day. This means for us that we get mini-fires starting anywhere that we have dry grass as the burning straw goes airborn and lands on our form.

Hi Dakling,

Its unfortunate to hear that you continue to have problems with your neighbours; have you been compensated for the damage earlier this year? If you have photos of the burnt trees I would be interested to see what they look like?

Have you (or your wife) considered a claim against your neighbour in negligence? I recall you had a representative from a government department to inspect the extent of the damage.

Good luck with the preventative measures you're taking.

J

[Dakling]

Hi Dakling,

Its unfortunate to hear that you continue to have problems with your neighbours; have you been compensated for the damage earlier this year? If you have photos of the burnt trees I would be interested to see what they look like?

Have you (or your wife) considered a claim against your neighbour in negligence? I recall you had a representative from a government department to inspect the extent of the damage.

Good luck with the preventative measures you're taking.

J

We have never been compensated for damage and I would never expect to receive compensation.

In our area there are few to no legal land titles and the local vilage headmen are incredibly inept. We have had no government representatives inspect the damage and they have no interest in getting involved in a situation that may have some form of conflict.

When I first tried to see who had burnt our trees the locals all claimed the the fires were started far away and spread through their lands as well as ours. If we try to get the police involved we would have to pay them to investigate and I have no faith that they would actually do anything of value. I will try to post some photos of the damage in a week or two.

[slapout]

Perhaps I am completely wrong on this but it appears your rubber trees may be on government owned land. I base this on your comment that there are few legal land titles in the area. There are government documents which allow land for ag. use, do you have such a document? Or any document showing you have the right to farm said land where your rubber trees are planted?

If not its (land) is kind of like ''open range'' any one can use it and burning to bring on mushroms is popular as thats a cash crop for those with the matches. If this is the case, lots of luck, if your goal is profit.

[Dakling]

Perhaps I am completely wrong on this but it appears your rubber trees may be on government owned land. I base this on your comment that there are few legal land titles in the area. There are government documents which allow land for ag. use, do you have such a document? Or any document showing you have the right to farm said land where your rubber trees are planted?

If not its (land) is kind of like ''open range'' any one can use it and burning to bring on mushroms is popular as thats a cash crop for those with the matches. If this is the case, lots of luck, if your goal is profit.

I am not exactly sure what you are on about but much of the land in our area has limited formal documentation relating to land titles. We have documents that have been signed by the local PuYai and our immediate neighbors but these are not formal land titles. When we purchased our land and we registered the purchase at the local Ampur but we have no Chanote, Sor Por Kor or Nor Sor Sam or anything like that. We are in the process of having our land titled but don't know what form of title we will recieve. Under the previous government we were told we would get Chanote now we are being told it will be Sor Por Kor. People have been on this land farming for generations and we are not near any parks, rivers or forests. Our land is clearly defined with a fence line and no one has contested our claim on the land during the initial phase of the titleing process.

No one is coming on our land and purposly burning the trees, rather they are lighting their own land on fire and then not taking care of the fire. These fires then spread to our land, we also had some idiot decide to burn along our fence line where the road goes through, killing a full row of trees in the process.

[thaiguzzi]

Greeting. Anybody had any luck growing a secondary crop between Rubber Trees? Is there more info about this anywhere?

First 3-4 years, the best thing is pineapples. As soon as there is canopy, nothing else is viable. Cassava is a big no-no, as the correct way to remove it, especially after 2-3 years, is with a tractor and deep plough, hence seriously damaging your rubber tree root growth.

[thaiguzzi]

Sold at auction Tuesday, Udon province, surprisingly slightly up at 24.50 baht per kg.

[imokg2g]

Sold yesterday at 21.40 baht/kg in Bueng Kan province.

Average yield 32.70 kg/rai

Cheers,

J

[thaiguzzi]

Sold at auction yesterday, Udon province, 23.78 baht per kg.

Nice to see my two husband and wife teams of tappers finally earn 15k each over a one month period this season.

[Dakling]

Sold at auction yesterday, Udon province, 23.78 baht per kg.

Nice to see my two husband and wife teams of tappers finally earn 15k each over a one month period this season.

You mean 15k per group or 15k per tapper? Crazy good money if it is the latter.

[thaiguzzi]

Ha! I wish, because if they were on 15k each (4 people) i'd be earning 100% more too.

No, the 15k was for each couple, over a 30 day period.

3-4 years ago, they were earning that a fortnight, with much less production, but far better prices.

[fezzy]

Sold Cuo Rubbber in Sukhothai Province.

21 Bt a kilo

[thaiguzzi]

Sold at auction Tuesday in Udon province, 23.89 baht per kg. Must still be money to be made as there were 14 (fourteen !) bidders.

[thoongfoned]

production (yeild) up now guys? the wife has her 600 trees working at the mo (surprised!) and they seem to be producing well, had no vits this year only some pig poo at the new year time. once we get some bahts in from a sale gonna treat them to some decent vits......

[thaiguzzi]

Post rainy season, cooler nights is when production goes right up, till the leaves are gone end of January.

[Mosha]

Weather lady yesterday was talking of the strong SW monsoon, but our weather now is coming from the other direction. For us that means less rain usually.

[Dakling]

Planning on fertilizing our fire damaged trees over the next few days. These trees have scorched trunks down at the base though not ringed (the ones that were fully ringed have died already). The remaining damaged trees all look like they will recover over time as the outer layers of the trunk are slowly spreading to cover the damaged areas.

These trees are 5yrs old, rrim600s and I was wondering should I change the mix of nutrients in the fertilizer this year because of the damage or should I stick with my normal split of around 20-10-10 ?

[thaiguzzi]

# You need soaking wet soil for the fertilizer to work, ie rainy season. I would do nothing fertilizer wise till next june onwards. Those numbers seem fine.

# Sold at auction yesterday, Udon province, 21.73 baht per kg.

[cobbler]

Greeting. Anybody had any luck growing a secondary crop between Rubber Trees? Is there more info about this anywhere?

prik kee gnu aka prik hom . They do well in the shade. We grew 5000. Be sure to plant them in the wet season. In the dry ,they wont die once established . But if not watered the surface roots of the yang will dry the soil , so no moisture for the chillies. Dont bother babying them . Just throw the seeds about. Weve done it both ways. So we know. Pakwan is good too. Also dont like full sun. Bush pakwan is worth more money so try that. Also needs water in dry time. We also tried banana and have seen it done successfully. BUT you need to plant them at same time as yang. We persevered with bananas but gave up eventually as the sun cant get through. People on th is forum did warn me of this but because ive seen it succeed i had to try. Also cuase im a bone head lmao

Cheers Cobbler

[cobbler]

Having ongoing problems with neighbors burning down our trees every winter on one plot of land. I have decided to intercrop with cassava despite our trees being 4+ years old. I am just hoping that leaving casava between the rows will provide some defence to the fires spreading but am unsure how affective it will be. Last winter the neighbors managed to kill about 50 of of 1,000 trees outright and probably damaged another 300. My hope is that the 300 will recover given time but we probably lost a year of growth on the ones who survive and will likely lose more of the damaged trees during the dry season. The damaged trees have yellowed leaves, and scorched trunks with verticle cracks in the blackened bark where I am hoping the tree is trying to heal itself. This year I am planning on clearing all ground cover back from fence lines by 2m or so and I also plan on hiring people to clear all vegitation down to bare earth around evey tree in a 1m radius. It is very frustrating the lack of respect our neighbors have for our land, they burn their rice fields at the end of the dry season every year by lighting fires at dusk and then they go home alowing the fire to go where it will. They often pick a windy day to as the rice straw remnents will burn all that much better on a windy day. This means for us that we get mini-fires starting anywhere that we have dry grass as the burning straw goes airborn and lands on our form.

Darkling . Maybe cut down the 3 rows of trees closest to the farm the fires come from. Plant bananas or mun or landmines. Thatll f¥€kem just an idea.

[Marcthomas]

Hi guys, so we have the same fire problem, every year now we use the same system of cutting the jungle weed down to. A bare minimum, then spraying. If their is any dryed dead we sweep it all together and burn it! Also I have 3 plots of land at night time we fill my truck with people from the village and pay them to burn around all the land. We take loads of water and back sprayers and do a controlled burn, this and cutting the weeds has stopped any fire for the last 5 years anyway!? It is an expense and a pain but well worth the peace of mind

[thoongfoned]

Hi guys, so we have the same fire problem, every year now we use the same system of cutting the jungle weed down to. A bare minimum, then spraying. If their is any dryed dead we sweep it all together and burn it! Also I have 3 plots of land at night time we fill my truck with people from the village and pay them to burn around all the land. We take loads of water and back sprayers and do a controlled burn, this and cutting the weeds has stopped any fire for the last 5 years anyway!? It is an expense and a pain but well worth the peace of mind

lost a bit of rubber land due to fire this year. it can and will jump over roads (have seen). if the fire is of a "good" size it is very hard to stop. in previous years the local "fire truck" has always been on hand but it arrived to late this year......... I would not be surprised in the near future to see another fire kill off the rest of the trees that are still producing. locals just love a burn up. pessimistic I know.......... I don't think you can ever prepare enough for fire over here in the back end of nowhere unless you live on site 24-7.

[cobbler]

Look at growing mun or something else maybe

[thoongfoned]

Look at growing mun or something else maybe

no, jumped on the bandwagon and let a family firm plant sugar cane on it. the wife has a few rai so its easyer just to rent it all out and not have the bother of this or that. if she buys any more land (can not stop her) "we" have decided to just rent it out in this manor and look to the future ie appreciation in our life time or the childrens. still keep a few rai back though for rice. but that's on a rented basis too. I know tooooo lazy.................. but in this way at least you earn a bit upfront.

with the rubber its so long (in our case) just to earn a few baht that with hindsight it would have been better to leave the land as scrub........ but then I would not have had all that fun pruning ect...... still it was my idea to plant the rubber trees..........

[cobbler]

Look at growing mun or something else maybe

no, jumped on the bandwagon and let a family firm plant sugar cane on it. the wife has a few rai so its easyer just to rent it all out and not have the bother of this or that. if she buys any more land (can not stop her) "we" have decided to just rent it out in this manor and look to the future ie appreciation in our life time or the childrens. still keep a few rai back though for rice. but that's on a rented basis too. I know tooooo lazy.................. but in this way at least you earn a bit upfront.

with the rubber its so long (in our case) just to earn a few baht that with hindsight it would have been better to leave the land as scrub........ but then I would not have had all that fun pruning ect...... still it was my idea to plant the rubber trees..........

Good move to rent the land out and not have the hassle. We have friends in sukhothai who do exactly that. Hindsight is my best tool too . 555

[thaiguzzi]

Well, it's taken a few years, but we finally got there - the below 20 baht per kg threshold. Sold yesterday, at auction, Udon province, 19.29 baht per kg.