Maize and Rotational Crops

[wayned]

There are two farmers near me that have migrant camps set up on their property. Before the coup they would be bustling by now and sugar cutting would be in full swing. Most of the workers in the past were Cambodian with a few from Issan. Last year the Cambodians didn't come due to the political situation and the few workers from Issan were supplemented with locals. It was a three ring circus. This year the mill is not opening until the first week in December so the camps are empty. Whether or not the Cambodians come this year is unknown to me. Due to the freq storm that levelled some of the corn fields hand harvesting has begun with a few locals. It's still too wet for the beasts to start. Most likely we will have to add a forth and fifth ring to the circus this year!

[farmerjo]

There are two farmers near me that have migrant camps set up on their property. Before the coup they would be bustling by now and sugar cutting would be in full swing. Most of the workers in the past were Cambodian with a few from Issan. Last year the Cambodians didn't come due to the political situation and the few workers from Issan were supplemented with locals. It was a three ring circus. This year the mill is not opening until the first week in December so the camps are empty. Whether or not the Cambodians come this year is unknown to me. Due to the freq storm that levelled some of the corn fields hand harvesting has begun with a few locals. It's still too wet for the beasts to start. Most likely we will have to add a forth and fifth ring to the circus this year!

As the Ringmaster,i'm sure you will get it sorted out.

One thing on your side is the common sense factor.

[farmerjo]

On the to wet for harvesters so cutting by hand.(corn)

I had no problem threshing some 77 percent moisture corn earlier in the year.

But beware if its a Kubota harvester and you have a lot of green weeds.

In my particular crop i had to many green weeds.it worked fine for a while then i smelt a rubber burning smell that went away.

Stopped to check the machine at the end of the row and found i had smoked the walking seive belt off which overflowed a trail of grain down the row

not only that,the grass had built right back up into the axial rotor compressing it into smoldering cakes.

A good lesson learned with a new machine as i was testing its capabilities to the limit and found them.

Now i have a better understanding of what not to do.

One other thing was when harvesting corn,i had to clean the radiator screen every boxfull so a good compressor is required.

Got offered 30 rai to harvest today but declined as i don't know the land.

[wayned]

One other thing was when harvesting corn,i had to clean the radiator screen every boxfull so a good compressor is required.

Got offered 30 rai to harvest today but declined as i don't know the land.

Now I know why JD combines are so expensive, they have a rotating fan on the outside of the radiator screen that cleans it as you go.

A good decision about turning down harvesting land that you don't know.

[farmerjo]

One other thing was when harvesting corn,i had to clean the radiator screen every boxfull so a good compressor is required.

Got offered 30 rai to harvest today but declined as i don't know the land.

Now I know why JD combines are so expensive, they have a rotating fan on the outside of the radiator screen that cleans it as you go.

A good decision about turning down harvesting land that you don't know.

If you get a chance,could you post a picture of it Wayned please.

I presume the 7720 and 9500 have the same setup.I can visulise it but not in detail.

Cant remember if there motor or belt driven and whether the whole screen rotates. .

[wayned]

I went back and looked at all of the pictures from the build os the 6620 and could not find any that specifically showed the details on the system. The first picture shows the radiator housing without the radiator installed. If you notice there is a small shaft in the lower right that is driven by an extra pulley on the engine. Once the radiator is installed it is covered by a door with a screen and the external cleaning fan. The door has a bely, spins and pulleys connected to the external fan. When the door is closed the shaft fits in a hole in the door and there is a lever to lock down the internal door drive mechanism to the shaft. It was one of the most difficult things to get adjusted right because the shaft and the door frame are not physically mounted to the same structure and there were a bunch of shims that we had no idea where they went until the door wouldn't close. After the batteries for my brownie upgrade) get charged I'll go down and open the door and take some better pictures.

[wayned]

Here's a picture from the tech manual. There's not a lot of techical info and the parts manual has the parts scattered acroos about 10 pages. I'lll take some pictures after the baatteries caharge.

rotary screen.bmp

[farmerjo]

Been on the tractor last 2 days and worked up a 15 rai piece with the rotary hoe.

Was originally going to be level level for a rice field but after 3 years i give up,it has a fall of about a 30cms from west to east.

We have rain forecast for the weekend,if i could just get 5mm of rain(touch wood) i'll rotary hoe again then bang in some sunn hemp.

If not my ripper should finally be ready in 3 days time and will rip it,the ground is extremely hard under where i've hoed but holding some moisture.

Mid afternoon as you see its looking hard but first thing in the morning it is damp on top.

[farmerjo]

Allways looks better later in the arvo.

[farmerjo]

The rotary tiller setup i used.

[kickstart]

Looking at that rather naked rotavator ,if that was in the uk you would be locked up and they would throw away the key ,it is a bit short of guards ,but this is LOS ,Mi-Pen- Rie ,or Bor-Ben- Yang -Dork .

You said it is a bit hard under where you have rotovated ,and you may rotavator again ,I think that is where a lot of your problems are ,with drainage ,a rotavator ,dose a fair job of making a seed bed ,but for the health of the soil they are a disaster ,all those blades turning they smear the land at the rotavating depth preventing drainage and preventing the land from breathing and getting those microbes working , and used after a bit of rain the problem would be even worse .

They were popular in the uk for a while ,then the above problem was found and they were abandoned to the hedge bottom, Google rotavators, and I am certain there is a paper on this subject ( I have read one in the past). Using the subsoiler and then, if you do rotavat ,is like two steps forward one step back.

That photo is my Dutch harrow ,we made that a few years ago ,bit it is to light ,hence the concrete post give it a bit of weight ,the frame is 2 inch angle iron welded, should have used 3 inch, with the crumble bar on the back it makes a good job ,when the condition are right .

Something I have looked into ,if you took a shortened version of my cultivator tines ,about 10 -12 inches long ,put 2 rows on a frame, then 4 rows of Dutch harrow tines ,with the crumble bar on the back ,you would have a one pass operation , near me is a field all sand land ,Din Kee Peet,, a sub soiler ,then the one pass tool ,job done ,on my own black land ,I would think you might need 2 passes .

No disc ,or rotavator tine ,turning over the land ,and making a pan , just tines opening the land , the land would benefit .

[farmerjo]

Hi KS,

Yes a bit naughty with no guards but have an enclosed cab on tractor,i agree with putting the rotary away.I used it as a one off to take out some serious ruts(as opposed to a plough) when trying to level in the rainy season.Will have to do certain areas with ruts on my corn land but limited to a few areas.

The reason i was going to hoe again was to control weeds but i could spray for them.

I'm getting excited about my subsoiler turning up.

I like your dutch harrows,they certainly have a place in land management here as we move away from old practices.

That 15 rai hasn't been in crop for 3 years while trying to modify it and has little to no organic matter.

Edited November 13, 2015 by farmerjo

[farmerjo]

Looking at that rather naked rotavator ,if that was in the uk you would be locked up and they would throw away the key ,it is a bit short of guards ,but this is LOS ,Mi-Pen- Rie ,or Bor-Ben- Yang -Dork .

You said it is a bit hard under where you have rotovated ,and you may rotavator again ,I think that is where a lot of your problems are ,with drainage ,a rotavator ,dose a fair job of making a seed bed ,but for the health of the soil they are a disaster ,all those blades turning they smear the land at the rotavating depth preventing drainage and preventing the land from breathing and getting those microbes working , and used after a bit of rain the problem would be even worse .

They were popular in the uk for a while ,then the above problem was found and they were abandoned to the hedge bottom, Google rotavators, and I am certain there is a paper on this subject ( I have read one in the past). Using the subsoiler and then, if you do rotavat ,is like two steps forward one step back.

That photo is my Dutch harrow ,we made that a few years ago ,bit it is to light ,hence the concrete post give it a bit of weight ,the frame is 2 inch angle iron welded, should have used 3 inch, with the crumble bar on the back it makes a good job ,when the condition are right .

Something I have looked into ,if you took a shortened version of my cultivator tines ,about 10 -12 inches long ,put 2 rows on a frame, then 4 rows of Dutch harrow tines ,with the crumble bar on the back ,you would have a one pass operation , near me is a field all sand land ,Din Kee Peet,, a sub soiler ,then the one pass tool ,job done ,on my own black land ,I would think you might need 2 passes .

No disc ,or rotavator tine ,turning over the land ,and making a pan , just tines opening the land , the land would benefit .

KS,

What type of trees are they in the background of the picture.

[wayned]

FJ

In addition to the manual that I sent you that doesn't really show a lot about the rotating fan I took the pictures as I said that I would. The first is the sweeper that rotates on the outside of the external screen on the door assembly. The next 4 are with the door open and show the drive mechanism in the door, the drive shaft assembly and the hole where the shaft enters the door when closed and the locking mechanism. The next is a "very used" corn sheller/shucker that we bought since this year there seems that there will be a large amount of hand picked corn on the cob. It is top loaded fro a front loader. The next to last is the small pile of un-shucked corn that we bought and the last is the total amount of shucked corn that we have to dry, not a lot. The 9500 is off the Utaitanni Province and is currently harvesting but we will not buy it as it is 125 kilometres away. We are currently buying corn on the cob at 4.4 baht/kilo and 30% shelled corn at 6.6 baht/kilo (none bought yet) Mechanical corn harvest here is still a couple of weeks away.

[farmerjo]

Hi Wayned,

Thanks for your help,its more complicated than i thought.

When i worked in the grain industry,our tractors worked in extreme dusty conditions.

We used to cook the hydraulics until we reversed the direction of the fan blades so they forced the air out instead of sucking it in.

That maybe an option for me to try once my harvesters out of warranty. Otherwise i would have to import the unit like yours and modify the drive.

Great to see some corn at your depot so your seasons underway.

[kickstart]

Hi FJ

The tree in the back ground of my photo is a Don -Son ต้นสน

[kickstart]

Hi FJ

The tree in the background of my photo is a Don-Son ต้นสน , in Thai, it is a type of pine tree ,they is a few posts on TV about them .

This one is about 12 years old ,planted by the former owner of the land ,it now belongs to our next door neighbour ,he is talking about chopping it down and making it into charcoal ,sometime next year,what a waist , I am tempted to offer him a few thousand Bart for it ,and just leave it ,it is growing well ,being on our land ,never short of water ,cattle often use it for shade .

The Banana trees in the far background, are some posh variety belonging to our neighbour , thinks he will ,make a lot on them, feeds them a type of EM fertilizer they look well ,I still say he will only get 20 - 30 Bart a bunch ,just like ordinary bananas .

[farmerjo]

Hi FJ

The tree in the background of my photo is a Don-Son ต้นสน , in Thai, it is a type of pine tree ,they is a few posts on TV about them .

This one is about 12 years old ,planted by the former owner of the land ,it now belongs to our next door neighbour ,he is talking about chopping it down and making it into charcoal ,sometime next year,what a waist , I am tempted to offer him a few thousand Bart for it ,and just leave it ,it is growing well ,being on our land ,never short of water ,cattle often use it for shade .

The Banana trees in the far background, are some posh variety belonging to our neighbour , thinks he will ,make a lot on them, feeds them a type of EM fertilizer they look well ,I still say he will only get 20 - 30 Bart a bunch ,just like ordinary bananas .

Thanks KS,

At some stage in the future i need to plant some trees around the boundary to protect the crops from wind damage.

At the same time i have lovely views and i don't want to block them out so always on the lookout for what would suit my needs.

[slapout]

Hi Wayned,

Thanks for your help,its more complicated than i thought.

When i worked in the grain industry,our tractors worked in extreme dusty conditions.

We used to cook the hydraulics until we reversed the direction of the fan blades so they forced the air out instead of sucking it in.

That maybe an option for me to try once my harvesters out of warranty. Otherwise i would have to import the unit like yours and modify the drive.

Great to see some corn at your depot so your seasons underway.

We installed , hydraulic air oil cooler systems if overheating was a problem. There are several companies that make them for farm, road machinery, etc use with a wide range of size fluid volume capacity, etc for just about any system out there., if they were not built in by manufactor. Most could even be installed on site by a shade tree mechanic, if you spec what use it is for and what model/year equipment it will be put on. if memory serves correctly a 80 to 90 gallon per minute system was less than 500 usd.

[pigeonjake]

hi farmerjo and you other farmers.

i

was just wondering if any of you had tried to grow peanuts,

grandma grows a few for me for my racing pigeons, and i have just put a few in myself to try,

just a thought

[wayned]

Hi Wayned,

Thanks for your help,its more complicated than i thought.

When i worked in the grain industry,our tractors worked in extreme dusty conditions.

We used to cook the hydraulics until we reversed the direction of the fan blades so they forced the air out instead of sucking it in.

That maybe an option for me to try once my harvesters out of warranty. Otherwise i would have to import the unit like yours and modify the drive.

Great to see some corn at your depot so your seasons underway.

Reversible fans are available. Whether or not you could find one that you could easily fit to your combine might be a trick and finding one here would be a hat trick!

[farmerjo]

Hi Wayned,

Thanks for your help,its more complicated than i thought.

When i worked in the grain industry,our tractors worked in extreme dusty conditions.

We used to cook the hydraulics until we reversed the direction of the fan blades so they forced the air out instead of sucking it in.

That maybe an option for me to try once my harvesters out of warranty. Otherwise i would have to import the unit like yours and modify the drive.

Great to see some corn at your depot so your seasons underway.

We installed , hydraulic air oil cooler systems if overheating was a problem. There are several companies that make them for farm, road machinery, etc use with a wide range of size fluid volume capacity, etc for just about any system out there., if they were not built in by manufactor. Most could even be installed on site by a shade tree mechanic, if you spec what use it is for and what model/year equipment it will be put on. if memory serves correctly a 80 to 90 gallon per minute system was less than 500 usd.

Hi Slapout,

Those tractors had additional cooling units as well,it was just the nature of conditions working inside a silo moving grain.

Here in thailand just looking for ideas so i don't have to clean the primary radiator screen with a compressor every boxfull on the harvester.

[farmerjo]

hi farmerjo and you other farmers.

i

was just wondering if any of you had tried to grow peanuts,

grandma grows a few for me for my racing pigeons, and i have just put a few in myself to try,

just a thought

Hi Jake,

Haven't seen any peanuts grown in my area,not sure about the other growers on here's areas.

In fact here its rare to see a crop other than the main crops,rice,sugar,cassava and corn.

I had to drive 10kms to find some sunn hemp and soya bean seeds and there was only 2 farmers growing them in the off season there.

[wayned]

I looked at the 6620 and I think that it would be easy to turn the fan blades over on it. The fan is not bolted to the water pump and is belt driven. The fan blade assembly is bolted to the drive hub with four blots and could easily be turned over. I would have to check clearances but I think that it would work. Here's a picture from the IPL:

RADIATOR FAN SHEAVE.pdf

[kickstart]

hi farmerjo and you other farmers.

i

was just wondering if any of you had tried to grow peanuts,

grandma grows a few for me for my racing pigeons, and i have just put a few in myself to try,

just a thought

Hi PJ

Peanuts are popular round here ,we have a belt of red sand land ,they seem to like that land ,I would have thought any light land would do , they like free draining land.

Most farmers use a 3 disc then a 7 disc plough ,but if you are only doing a small area ,if you can find a small 5 disc plough ,your tractor should pull it ,might have to ,plough one way then cross the field to get a bit of depth ,and get a fairly fine seed bed .

You can use a ordinary drill for drilling ,the standard plates in the drill for maize should do ,row spacing's with the maize drill might be a bit wide ,you could drill one way then come back down the middle of the row that would give you a row width of 15 inch's ,a bit close ,but you would get better weed control with the narrow rows.

The misses said they could do with ridging up ,like you would with maize ,not easy with the narrow row spacings ,find a small ridgger and ajust the ridging blades to match .the rows.

Fertilizer ,peanuts being a legume they would not need a lot of N ,a basic compound fertilizer would do ,you might need a fungicide spray ,depends on the weather .

You should have a crop after 80-90 days after drilling ,I have been past a field of peanut being harvested ,all pulled ,and sorted by hand a gang coms in ,a couple of days ,for one of our 25 rie block of land ,depending on the year ,they might want drying ,to prevent funguses ,just leave them in the sun for a few days

Then ,keep a few back ,dry fry them in a wok , a bit of salt , then find a beer Leo......enjoy.

Ps. Well off topic ,how's the Hereford pig.

[pigeonjake]

hi farmerjo and you other farmers.

i

was just wondering if any of you had tried to grow peanuts,

grandma grows a few for me for my racing pigeons, and i have just put a few in myself to try,

just a thought

Hi PJ

Peanuts are popular round here ,we have a belt of red sand land ,they seem to like that land ,I would have thought any light land would do , they like free draining land.

Most farmers use a 3 disc then a 7 disc plough ,but if you are only doing a small area ,if you can find a small 5 disc plough ,your tractor should pull it ,might have to ,plough one way then cross the field to get a bit of depth ,and get a fairly fine seed bed .

You can use a ordinary drill for drilling ,the standard plates in the drill for maize should do ,row spacing's with the maize drill might be a bit wide ,you could drill one way then come back down the middle of the row that would give you a row width of 15 inch's ,a bit close ,but you would get better weed control with the narrow rows.

The misses said they could do with ridging up ,like you would with maize ,not easy with the narrow row spacings ,find a small ridgger and ajust the ridging blades to match .the rows.

Fertilizer ,peanuts being a legume they would not need a lot of N ,a basic compound fertilizer would do ,you might need a fungicide spray ,depends on the weather .

You should have a crop after 80-90 days after drilling ,I have been past a field of peanut being harvested ,all pulled ,and sorted by hand a gang coms in ,a couple of days ,for one of our 25 rie block of land ,depending on the year ,they might want drying ,to prevent funguses ,just leave them in the sun for a few days

Then ,keep a few back ,dry fry them in a wok , a bit of salt , then find a beer Leo......enjoy.

Ps. Well off topic ,how's the Hereford pig.

hi K S,

thanks for the info,

i dont grow big areas,,lol,

grandma grows enough for my pigeons, and i have just put a few rows in just to see how they go, im more for growing a few veg for the house and any left overs go to all the animals,

hereford has now gone, ive got 12 left from that batch, as we have started to sell our own pork, i set to and built the wife a small shop all section so if i have to move i can un bolt it,

we have just had one slaughterd tonight, its just chilling and ill cut it up tomorow at 5am so the wife can take it to the shop at 6, its going well cutting the middle man out of things, so now we buy in piglets rear them,slaughter and sell the pork,

everything is sold mate, all the insides the lot, everytime we have one slaughterd, the head, feet and tail are orderd for an offering, 300bht,

sorry farmerjo for going off topic,

but i like the sound of the salted peanuts and leo,,,lol

stay well and happy guys, just look whats happened in paris, i for one am glad im out here,

jake

[Allgeier]

Last week i bought 100 gr. of sunflower seed for 120 Bath. Is this normal or not? Or there so expensive.

[farmerjo]

Last week i bought 100 gr. of sunflower seed for 120 Bath. Is this normal or not? Or there so expensive.

Hi Allgeier,

I paid 750/baht/kilo back around july but that was 1 kilo bags.

What variety did you buy?

The variety i got is for oil seed but there's many types.

Edited November 17, 2015 by farmerjo

[Allgeier]

Last week i bought 100 gr. of sunflower seed for 120 Bath. Is this normal or not? Or there so expensive.

Hi Allgeier,

I paid 750/baht/kilo back around july but that was 1 kilo bags.

What variety did you buy?

They'd three choice.

- One for sprouts

- violett seed for planting

- red seed for planting

I ask them which are better. purple or red and there told me purple. And i bought purple. But i dont know the name from the variety.

Question:

Why not open a new Thread about Rotational and Cover Crops. On the web are so many website about bean and it will easyer for somebody else and for me to find this in a cover or rational Thread again.

Edited November 17, 2015 by Allgeier

[farmerjo]

Last week i bought 100 gr. of sunflower seed for 120 Bath. Is this normal or not? Or there so expensive.

Hi Allgeier,

I paid 750/baht/kilo back around july but that was 1 kilo bags.

What variety did you buy?

They'd three choice.

- One for sprouts

- violett seed for planting

- red seed for planting

I ask them which are better. purple or red and there told me purple. And i bought purple. But i dont know the name from the variety.

Question:

Why not open a new Thread about Rotational and Cover Crops. On the web are so many website about bean and it will easyer for somebody else and for me to find this in a cover or rational Thread again.

Hi Allgeier,

I must admit since the thread changed to Maize and Rotation crops its got a bit higglety piggerty.

Its very hard to get a topic pinned these days so just trying to build up a history where people can read through and gather as much information in the one thread,its all related (well most of it in a friendly manner).

There are the pinned threads in the organic section but a lot of us are along way off organic.

I for one don't want to use the search button everytime,which must be frustrating for a few other very good threads that are not pinned.