Coconuts

[Bluetongue]

Is anybody here growing coconuts in any kind of scale? I want to grow a couple of hundred if I can as a substitute for further lamyai. In the hope that in a few years they would produce and the annual effort wouldn't be the same as the lamyai. I am finding labour hard to get and now the wife has her restaurant going full tilt I am on my own so definitely don't need any more work. She wants me to plant more bamboo but I have a fair bit of that already and heard of a coconut shortage looming.

Is now a good time to plant or would the start of the wet be better. Any other tips? I did do some searching on here and couldn't find much, also looking around the net. I know Jim was doing some but haven't seen him post for a while. Obviously I've a way to go but want to go from thinking to action.

[julemanden]

Get the brown nuts, trow them on the ground in a damp/wet area and they'll quickly start grow...Easy as that : Good luck

[teletiger]

I think the recommended spacing for commercial coconut is 9 metres. Plenty of room to grow something else in between. 'And whilst you're at it grow black pepper or vanilla up the coconuts. There, that should keep you busy,

Buy the starters, 1.5 metres high, 20 Baht. (CM) You've a choice between the smaller sweet coconuts or the larger ones. (taller)

Some Thai growers dose them with salt once a year. (Sodium chloride) There was a thread on it a few years back. Wouldn't do the pepper or vanilla much good though!

Regards.

[David48]

Mate, MissFarmGirl ... before they were Fish Farmers ... they were Coconut Growers.

I've shot her off an email.

Will reply back once she answers.

[khunPer]

Believe coconut palms produce flowers and nuts continuously over the year – my only two big palms does (I am not farming at all, just have two big palms in front of house) – so may just be to put sprouting nuts down the ground/sand (I did with a couple, and the grow fine). Or buy 1½ m palms, as suggested in another post. I've also heard about the salt from farmers up at Isaan, saying that without salt the palm will not produce any nuts – coconut palms grows fine at beaches.

However, they seem to grow quite slow, so perhaps you should check how old a palm should be, before it can produce nuts.

The big palms seems to produce quite a number of nuts over the year – according to Wikipedia a »coconut palm tree can yield up to 75 fruits per year, but more often yields less than 30« – I have never counted, but indeed more than 30 when we cut them. I’ve heard those growing coconuts on a commercial base gets some 5 baht for a nut, but price may have gone up.

The coconut shortage I have read about is for organic grown nuts to be used in the booming health-coco-water business in mainly USA, but spreading to Europe. The producers said, it’s hard to find enough organic nuts of good quality from their usual sources, and that they were now going to look at Southeast Asia as supplier, Malaysia and Thailand. I don’t know if there also is a domestic coconut shortage looming.

I wish you good luck with your project.

[Taco]

Just a heads up there is a big problem with this bug killing many of the coconuts in Koh Phangan and Samui. The chemical treatment you put on the tree annually to keep the pests off make the coconuts inedible for 4 months so if in your area if this issue is present I wouldnt bother growing coconuts. Supposedly when Yingluck came here last year and also visited Samui she launched some sort of invasive pest to the kill the coconut killing pest and we all know how those grand plans pan out. Massive backfire.

[bbudd]

Started with meter high sprouts and still took 8 years before they started producing any nuts

Seems the roots have to get down to the water table before they produce-so see how far down it is to water

A mature tree will easily produce 100 nuts a year and there up to 10 bhatt here in the north and they climb for them

Good luck on your growing

[samuijimmy]

Just a heads up there is a big problem with this bug killing many of the coconuts in Koh Phangan and Samui. The chemical treatment you put on the tree annually to keep the pests off make the coconuts inedible for 4 months so if in your area if this issue is present I wouldnt bother growing coconuts. Supposedly when Yingluck came here last year and also visited Samui she launched some sort of invasive pest to the kill the coconut killing pest and we all know how those grand plans pan out. Massive backfire.

Yes, the Red Beetle... caused a lot of damage... but this year from my observation, the problem is not as bad and many trees seem to look much better... let's hope that continues...

In some areas you see these traps ... which I am guessing, but believe them to be pheromone traps, which if the case would trap kill the males.

Much better than spraying, which is just about an impossible task... although I did see them trying in some areas....

This is one of the little buggers!

This is the damage on a coconut tree ...fortunately close the the ground.... easier to get pictures... (this was July 27 2012)

A couple of Larvae

The schools were handing out pamphlets with images and information as an awareness program... so I think, some good has become of it ....

One tree that was damaged beyond "repair" on Samui ...

As I said, the problem does not look nearly as bad now... .... (fingers crossed)

It's also a problem in many other countries... not just Samui and KP... !!

[nedkellylives]

We had 2 of the shorter coconut palms in our garden in Phuket, one eas killed by the beetles

We treated the other one with poison and its OK

How can you make money from coconuts, on special at tesco lotus trimmed down ready to drink 15 baht

[David48]

BT ... MissFarmGirls exact email was ...

"Since grand mother go up and every uncle change to grow the prawns

they never interest to grow the coconut tree and we got the black grub eat all the coconut tree.

Before, we had many many coconut tree but now no.
I know now coconut quite expensive.

Why you ask me this question?...some one from Thaivisa?"

I fixed up a few caps, some spelling etc.

So they stopped simply because of the Coconut 'Black Grub'.

Mate, you might find this interesting ... http://www.coconutboard.nic.in/protect.htm

They talk about the pest issues on the Tab.

[khunPer]

Just a heads up there is a big problem with this bug killing many of the coconuts in Koh Phangan and Samui. The chemical treatment you put on the tree annually to keep the pests off make the coconuts inedible for 4 months so if in your area if this issue is present I wouldnt bother growing coconuts. Supposedly when Yingluck came here last year and also visited Samui she launched some sort of invasive pest to the kill the coconut killing pest and we all know how those grand plans pan out. Massive backfire.

Samui bugs: Seems like the bugs only attack the inland coconut palm trees, in those palm trees by the beaches – or very close the beaches – there are no or almost no bugs, presumable because of the salt from the sea (the wind carries the salt a bit inland).

Just an off topic remark: Originally the Hainan Chinese population of Samui grew cotton, but the got pest in the cotton plants and gave up, changed “business plan” and began growing coconuts, quite successful and became the main quality coconut supplier, according to the Samui history. Now pest came again… However the coconut business is quite small at Samui today, the Chinese had once again changed their “business plan”, this time for tourism, and started to build small bamboo huts with coco palm leaf roofs for the backpacker invasion – and the most worthless land for growing coconuts little later brought the farmer families a fortune, now piled up with mainly high-end beach resorts.

[teletiger]

'And, you can pour filtered, untreated coconut oil straight into your "old" diesel engine's fuel tank. As they did after the war in Malaysia and Indonesia and the Philippines. The only drawback is that it solidifies below 22/23c.

Peak oil anyone?

Regards.