After 2 relatively poor years for rice, my wife is turning 17 rai she has used for rice into more

sugar cane this week.

WMJ,

I believe him, I want to get close to Australian yields of a tonne per rai. Got have a goal! Not so far out of reach with the right soil preparation, rainfall, fertilisers and rice strains.

I have achieved close to 650 but never 700. That was a year after we had levelled the paddies and disturbed lots of old stumps, humps, bumps and hollows. It will be compost for next year with a bit of luck.

In Australia and other countries farmers grow heavy yields of rice for a living. Here most people grow rice to live.

This guy just had a combine harvest his rice. He got a little over 2500 kg off of his 3 rai. The owner of the combine said that most of the rice farmers in this area still only make 3,000 baht per rai per harvest profit even with the 15 baht per kg rice scheme in place.

all bad around here,

no rain grass and weed everywhere,

turning all of it into sugarcane, even (considering taking out the latex tree out 10 rai not much) and doing sugar

want to eat rice? go buy it.

already do anyway,

missus not keen thou

around here i sell sugar at 14.000 per rai,/i know if i cut and tranported my self i get a bit more but its hard work

Meanwhile in the News Forum, Thailand to be #1 exporter of rice next year.

I have followed the 1st season that my in laws have done sugarcane closely now. (I loaded and transported 50 tonnes in my Tata).

.

Early calculations showed a yield of around 25 tonnes/rai. with a price of 1300 baht for a tonne.The inlaws are over the moon and already started ripping up paddy fields to put sugarcane and renting more land to grow sugarcane. They haven't really worked in a very specilized way on it. just plowed, put the cane in the ground, watered it, fertilized it and harvested.

In some places it was more than 4 meters high and the best quality got around 20 baht for each "mat"(bundle of 10 canes).

The more cars run on ethanol, the more popular sugarcane will become. I see sugar cane overtaking rice here in the next years, with rice automatically gaining in price as a result

.

WMJ,

I believe him, I want to get close to Australian yields of a tonne per rai. Got have a goal! Not so far out of reach with the right soil preparation, rainfall, fertilisers and rice strains.

I have achieved close to 650 but never 700. That was a year after we had levelled the paddies and disturbed lots of old stumps, humps, bumps and hollows. It will be compost for next year with a bit of luck.

In Australia and other countries farmers grow heavy yields of rice for a living. Here most people grow rice to live.

Different strain of rice though.

To have seriously large rice paddies to suit large harvesters, the paddy has to be level if it is to be flooded. If it is not flooded, the weed problem will be ten times worse. Here they level it by eye so it is trial and error. A big farmer would require a laser grader. I have never seen a laser grader here in Thailand. We had rice paddies that were dry in some areas and had six or eight inches of water in other areas. Those rice paddies have now been converted to growing sugar cane so it no longer matters.

Why no laser graders in Thailand. They are portable and not too expensive. In oz, just about every plant operator carries one in the truck.

Meanwhile in the News Forum, Thailand to be #1 exporter of rice next year.

It will never happen, too many little growers, too much govt corruption. To achieve this there will have to be big growers who can export their own rice corruption free.