Irrigation of 30 Rai Palm

[Charlie1]

Hi,

as there's quite little to be found about Oil Palm on this forum, I was just wondering if anyone has practised irrigation on his Oil Palm plantation.

This year is unusually dry even here in Krabi and as I have a huge pond all alongside the 30 Rai, I would just need electricity, a pump, a control system and dripping hoses. Anyone has any ideas if there are specialised companies installing this and at waht price?

Any information welcome!

Thanks and happy farming to all of you!

Charlie1

[Farang Paul]

It may be dry now, but it was a very wet rainy season. Yields are low, hence the price is now over 5 Baht.

Normally it is not worth irrigating oil palms, the cost exceeds the increase in yield.

Use a gasoline powered pump 2,500- 5,000 baht - a powerful enough electric pump will cost you a fortune and eat electricity.

Dripping systems are a real pain as you have to clean them so regularly, and the pump has to be on for a long time.

I use the polythene piping with holes in it, which I buy from my local farm supply shop and spray at full volume for an hour or so.

There is no company I know of in Krabi that specialises in this - I hate to think what they would charge.

I covered about 20 rai and my costs came in about 18,000 Baht excluding the labour.

Personally I wouldn't bother to do it again.

[Canada]

Global sells parts for drip irrigation systems. We are working with a few small systems that we've built recently. We are farming sugarcane so we are putting down quite a bit of water. We are running about 3-4 rai of hose and then irrigating for 2 days the moving the filter system (and in some cases, the hose as well) to the next patch needing water.

Pulling water from wells is working good, but today we started pulling water from a klong, and almost the entire 3 rai is not running well....dirty water. The filter system doesn't seem to be doing it's job. On the other hand, we've just finished close to 30 rai of cane with no problems to speak of. Water from wells, not from ponds or klongs.

I'll need to flush the dirty system in the morning and figure out a better filter for that system.

For irrigating cane, I figure the money spent may eventually come back in savings on labour, or it may not. What will happen though is that I become less reliant on workers. That's worth something.

[Charlie1]

Thanks for your replies!

I'll follow the recommendations of you, Farang Paul, as you've had the experience already and don't recommend to do it.

Thanks !