Looking For Advice Regarding Lumyai Farming

[connda]

My wife and I have just started working her Lumyai orchard this year (it's been fallow for about 5 years). Pretty much broke even after labor and materials. AA size lumyai was selling for upwards of 26 baht/kilo with medium size at 10 baht/kilo. The majority of our fruit was medium sized. I really would like to get our yields per rai higher next year and grow larger lumyai fruit (AA size).

I'd like to get more information regarding fertilizers, hormones, irrigation schedules and any other tips in order to increase the yield and size of the fruit. We are growing in Lamphun Province.

Thanks!

[slapout]

What seems to work most years" prune after harvest, clear under trees and dispose of trimmings,and trash

apply 15 20 15 aeround drip line of trees prior to rainey season and second application of same towards end of rain (December)

irrigrate every 2 weeks or so during dry season the equilivent of 1 to 1 and 1/4 inch of rain each time.

After new leaf come on, hold off irrigation until bloom starts and sets and then start same schedule as before.increase to 2 inch each time.

There is a hormone to intensify bloom and set which does seem to help. Manure worked in around tree makes for more mellow soil and gives a nitrogen kick.if done with second application fo fertilizer

good luck if price holds at 25 to 30/kilo for AA there is money to be made. 60 to 65 percent of fruit grade AA, has been my experience on good years, using these guidelines.

[gamini]

We grew lamyai on our farm in Chiangmai until about 5 years ago. We had about 200 trees, We never got more than Bt10 per kilo and it cost us quite a lot of money getting people to pick and sort our crop. Some years there is a glut and the price goes down to Bt5 a kilo.

It does not require much attention and it is easy to grow in lampang. You must water them and give them a little fertiliser. The only way you can get a better crop is replanting the trees with a better variety. I would not be too optimistic about making a profit because there are so many people planting the trees now. You would do better with KRATORN trees

[connda]

What seems to work most years" prune after harvest, clear under trees and dispose of trimmings,and trash

apply 15 20 15 aeround drip line of trees prior to rainey season and second application of same towards end of rain (December)

irrigrate every 2 weeks or so during dry season the equilivent of 1 to 1 and 1/4 inch of rain each time.

After new leaf come on, hold off irrigation until bloom starts and sets and then start same schedule as before.increase to 2 inch each time.

There is a hormone to intensify bloom and set which does seem to help. Manure worked in around tree makes for more mellow soil and gives a nitrogen kick.if done with second application fo fertilizer

good luck if price holds at 25 to 30/kilo for AA there is money to be made. 60 to 65 percent of fruit grade AA, has been my experience on good years, using these guidelines.

Thanks for the information!

We grew lamyai on our farm in Chiangmai until about 5 years ago. We had about 200 trees, We never got more than Bt10 per kilo and it cost us quite a lot of money getting people to pick and sort our crop. Some years there is a glut and the price goes down to Bt5 a kilo.

It does not require much attention and it is easy to grow in lampang. You must water them and give them a little fertiliser. The only way you can get a better crop is replanting the trees with a better variety. I would not be too optimistic about making a profit because there are so many people planting the trees now. You would do better with KRATORN trees

We had fire jump from public land to our orchard 3 years ago that took out about 1/3 of our trees. We've decided to put in mangoes to replace them. This will give us two harvests a year, and no one else in the area is growing mangoes. We're expecting to be ahead of the curve on this. We may eventually completely phase out the lumyai.

...and thanks also for the input!

Edited August 15, 2012 by connda

[Bluetongue]

We are working three orchards but way down south and east from you in Pong Nam Ron, Chantaburi. I think there are differences in tree varieties, production techniques and marketing here. This would possibly be due to a slightly different climate and proximity to shipping?. All our larger 1-3 fruit and nigh on everyone else's goes to China and prices vary from 30-40. Most buyers go around and contract to buy fruit 4,5 months before harvest and they supply the labour. The grading is different they use a numbering system here from 1-4. The 4 sized fruit sold locally and usually peeled and dried and sold as pulp goes for 9baht a kilo at the moment. Last year we had 5 tons and a bit of 1-3 and a ton of 4. So my advice would probably not be relevant, but I'll give it anyway.

We prune after harvest, fertilise and irrigate once at that time and then leave them for a couple of months, irrigating every couple of weeks if no rain. Then apply fertiliser again before finally applying a small amount of sodium chlorate to force the trees to flower. Then a cycle of irrigating every 4th day and fertilising about every three weeks introducing some urea a couple of times in about 50/50 with 15/15/15. Some spraying against pests and disease occurs and a hormone is applied. In the middle of the cycle we apply a generic fertiliser. We also thin the clusters of fruit so that fruit has more chance to reach optimum size. A rough guide would be about 50 fruit in a cluster as a goal. To start with some of them have 100 or more. As the fruit starts to get bigger we add a sweeter mix and at the end irrigate every couple of days.

[connda]

We are working three orchards but way down south and east from you in Pong Nam Ron, Chantaburi. I think there are differences in tree varieties, production techniques and marketing here. This would possibly be due to a slightly different climate and proximity to shipping?. All our larger 1-3 fruit and nigh on everyone else's goes to China and prices vary from 30-40. Most buyers go around and contract to buy fruit 4,5 months before harvest and they supply the labour. The grading is different they use a numbering system here from 1-4. The 4 sized fruit sold locally and usually peeled and dried and sold as pulp goes for 9baht a kilo at the moment. Last year we had 5 tons and a bit of 1-3 and a ton of 4. So my advice would probably not be relevant, but I'll give it anyway.

We prune after harvest, fertilise and irrigate once at that time and then leave them for a couple of months, irrigating every couple of weeks if no rain. Then apply fertiliser again before finally applying a small amount of sodium chlorate to force the trees to flower. Then a cycle of irrigating every 4th day and fertilising about every three weeks introducing some urea a couple of times in about 50/50 with 15/15/15. Some spraying against pests and disease occurs and a hormone is applied. In the middle of the cycle we apply a generic fertiliser. We also thin the clusters of fruit so that fruit has more chance to reach optimum size. A rough guide would be about 50 fruit in a cluster as a goal. To start with some of them have 100 or more. As the fruit starts to get bigger we add a sweeter mix and at the end irrigate every couple of days.

Good stuff here. We had very few fruit clusters larger than about 10 fruit. Very rarely 25 to 35 per cluster, but those we did get tended to be large grade fruit. So I'm really interested in your comment about using sodium chlorate to stimulate flower clusters. How much are you using per tree and approximately when during the cool / dry season did you use it. I know we vary a bit being further north -- we lag the farmers south of us by 4 to 6 weeks. 100 per cluster??? Wow, I wish!

Edited August 17, 2012 by connda

[Bluetongue]

Hi Connda

To directly answer your question, on our prime orchard (72 trees) 90% mature large trees we used 25kgs dissolved in 1000 litres of water and sprayed it on the ground up to the drip line. Different people add different things we added a bit of chloro phenyl and 13-0-46 and a hormone tablet which I cannot read. On our second orchard where the trees are small and fruiting for the first time and we have a different soil type we used 2kgs in a smaller amount of water which I did not write down and my wife cant remember either!. The amount we used this year on the big trees was slightly less than last year. It is a judgement call based on soil type and previous years experience plus sifting advice from others, this year we seem to have it about right. A neighbour who has extremely rich red, sticky soil used too small an amount (similar amount to us) and has got a very poor crop, for instance. See photo for an average cluster, note there are many with larger numbers than this one.

We did this in June and expect to harvest in December. Here the harvest seems to peak twice firstly anywhere from September to December, peaking in October, and January to May peaking about start of April. Busy right now thinning the fruit down.

Edited August 21, 2012 by Bluetongue

[connda]

We just finished harvest last week. We need to prune and prep the ground for the next sesaon.

Thanks again for the information!