Maize and Rotational Crops

[farmerjo]

1st lot of corn spraying finished yesterday having to go down a few rows that had to be completed by hand due row spacings.

After 72mm of rain overnight attention turns to the rice fields.Getting them level ready for planting.Planting this year will be just broadcast by hand as it;s only for family consumption.

Then will have to look at another weed knockdown out the back land before more corn and sunn hemp.

Happy days now with the creek flowing.

[farmerjo]

On 2017-5-16 at 6:08 AM, farmerjo said:

1st lot of corn spraying finished yesterday having to go down a few rows that had to be completed by hand due row spacings.

After 72mm of rain overnight attention turns to the rice fields.Getting them level ready for planting.Planting this year will be just broadcast by hand as it;s only for family consumption.

Then will have to look at another weed knockdown out the back land before more corn and sunn hemp.

Happy days now with the creek flowing.

Add another 73mm overnight,nearly 6 inches in 2 days and still raining. 

Still a bit to go to reach the may record of 11 inches in 2012.

Edited May 17, 2017 by farmerjo

[kickstart]

Hi FJ.

        It seems a  nation wide thing this year   early  rain ,we have had 220mm  so far this month. Like wayned  wrote  this high  humidity  has really  knocked the stuffing out of you , we are cutting  Gratin, the  tree legume , we go out at by 7.30 am .any later  it is getting  hard hot  work  

 Crops of maize that were  drilled around the  Songkran  holiday  are  now about waist  high , and looking well , but a lot of  crops have yet to be drilled to wet , like the bit in our garden  I went over the land  with the cultivator , went down a good 18-20 inches , but now you can not walk across the land you just drop down 1 foot  to wet .

Guy near us has rented about 80 rie of land  back in February  started to plant it with sugar cane, planted 30 rie  watered it,water coming  from our local small  river ,until it dry up , the land being light sand land soon dyed up .it looked a bit sick for a week ,then the rains come now it looks well ,it needs to be , with his investment  he needs a good price  this year  cost of planting ,I go  out and look at our cattle at about 10 -10.30pm ,for a few weeks  I could hear his water pumps  working,  going 24-7.

Ps, How is that crawler coming on, obviously you got the cooling system  sorted out  , what about the tracks.

[wayned]

We've haven't had as much rain here although there has been a lot of thunder, lightening and power outages, 4 yesterday.  The corn that was planted here after Songkran is still only about 5 - 8 cm high.  Only about 50% of the farmers rolled the dice and planted.

 

As far as the humidity it's been terrible this year.  It's now 0740 and the temp in the living room is 30 degrees, but the humidity is 86%.  It feels like it should be raining.  It reminds me of summers in southern Mississippi!

[farmerjo]

On 2017-5-20 at 10:00 PM, kickstart said:

Hi FJ.

        It seems a  nation wide thing this year   early  rain ,we have had 220mm  so far this month. Like wayned  wrote  this high  humidity  has really  knocked the stuffing out of you , we are cutting  Gratin, the  tree legume , we go out at by 7.30 am .any later  it is getting  hard hot  work  

 Crops of maize that were  drilled around the  Songkran  holiday  are  now about waist  high , and looking well , but a lot of  crops have yet to be drilled to wet , like the bit in our garden  I went over the land  with the cultivator , went down a good 18-20 inches , but now you can not walk across the land you just drop down 1 foot  to wet .

Guy near us has rented about 80 rie of land  back in February  started to plant it with sugar cane, planted 30 rie  watered it,water coming  from our local small  river ,until it dry up , the land being light sand land soon dyed up .it looked a bit sick for a week ,then the rains come now it looks well ,it needs to be , with his investment  he needs a good price  this year  cost of planting ,I go  out and look at our cattle at about 10 -10.30pm ,for a few weeks  I could hear his water pumps  working,  going 24-7.

Ps, How is that crawler coming on, obviously you got the cooling system  sorted out  , what about the tracks.

Hi KS,

We have ended up with 9 inches for the week.

Haven't been out much but around me you would hardly know as the sugar crops are up about 5 feet tall and lapping it up.

My corn i planted is a little worse for wear and will take a lot of sunshine to pick up again.The neighbours corn which is about 1-2 weeks more advanced than mine is thriving.

The crawler is a great little machine,have had it out making some rice fields with rotary hoe on back and PTO works well..It will plane through mud 2 feet deep.

It's still running on the high side at 115 degrees(engine)and it takes about 3 hours of working to get up to that so then have a rest and cool it down.Will have to take the radiator out at some stage and get serviced as that's the only thing i haven't checked besides the timing.

The tracks are fine,no problems there with sprockets jumping or over tension.i welded some flatbar in the tensioner guides to take out the slack when turning so the 3PL implements don't rub on the tracks.I used it with the corn seeder to plant with no problems.

Haven't used the boomspray on it yet as i need to make a frame to sit a 200 litre drum of water on the front otherwise it's rear heavy with 750 litres in spray tank.

The biggest issue now is track width and row spacings as the seeder is on 750mm(30") spacings so have to look at what is the best fit for the equipment.The tracks have 1250mm centres and are 450mm wide.At this stage i'm looking at a 34"-16"-34"-16"-34"-16"-34" gap setup.It would up the seed population rate about 15 percent to help control weeds.It would also cater for in row spraying or cultivating so a few mods to be done to the planter.

My little Kubota could then also be used in row for light work. 

The beauty of this rain is i can now cancel anymore cropping besides rice till mid july giving me time to setup things a bit more user friendly.To tell the truth when i saw corn at only 6 baht/kilo i wasn't in any rush to get the whole lot in.The diesel is still in the tractor and the seed and fertilizer is in the shed.

Any thoughts on the row spacings.

 

[farmerjo]

On 2017-5-5 at 4:44 PM, farmerjo said:

To hot to be doing much here so be plottering in the shed making a prototype in row shield sprayer so i can use paraquat post emergent rather than selective herbicides.

   

Had a brain fade not thinking about tyre widths and row spacings so ended up using version 2.

It was successful spraying paraquat down the rows with no plant damage from the chemical.

The next version will have the shields independently mounted to ride over uneven terrain.

 

 

[farmerjo]

Ended up with 14 inches for may which is the highest amount on my recorded rainfall records.(11 before)

So far june has delivered 3 inches.Rice is up,corn is very waterlogged and looking like being turned back into the land as the excess water from rice field diverts to that field.The neighbours corn is looking very good considering the amount of rain.(try and take a pic over weekend)

@KS had a win with the overheating issues on my crawler.It was the internal cores in the radiator blocked up,best 1000 baht i ever spent to take it out and get it serviced(rodded out).Was a pain to get out,ended up cutting 6 slots in the chassis to access the side mounting bolts so i could just remove radiator and shroud and leave all the hydraulics and oil cooler intack. Now it's only an half hour job to get out for maintenance purposes.

 

 

 

 

[wayned]

You must live in a Hi-SO area!!  The last time that I took a radiator to the local "expert", he  removed the top and bottom, rodded it and soldered it back together and performed a "Thai pressure check" for a whopping 300 baht!

 

The corn  is doing good here.  We haven't had the rain that everybody else has reported.  Thunder, lightening and power outages in the afternoons but no water.  Then later ii starts and rains most of the night, a slow gentle rain that is really good.  I don't know how much we have gotten as I managed to smash my rain gauge in a fit of stupidity.  Happens a lot recently, not smashing rain gauges, but fits of stupidity!

[kickstart]

Hi FJ

         We had  12 ,well almost 13 inches of rain in May , so far this month  3 1/2 inches , that 1/2 inch  fell on me this evenings  coming home on the  bike, we are trying to make  Nappier grass  silage   , trying to get a  24-36  hour  wilt  before   chopping  not easy ,some of the grass  has gone down with the rain , making it  a pig of a job to cut , we have some very wet bags of silage. 

Maize  crops are looking well ,a lot of  crops  are in flower ,some crops  have  ears of corn, some  large ones , can not remember  when I have seen  maize crops so  forward as this  year ,what the  price  will be  ,who  knows , never seem to know  the price of a crop here in  LOS  untill  you  start and harvest the crop.

Guy  near me  is our soldering  guy ,had a hairline crack in a motorbike petrol  tank ,he charged me  50 baht  to solder  it up , had  the bottom outlet pipe  rust out on the tractor  radiator again  ,only charged me 120  bart put on new pipe  ,did you think of puting in a new core, in your  rad ,end of problems .

[wayned]

A new core in my truck cost me 3800 baht.  Best fix after the monthly trips to have the new leak soldered. But the bottom and top caps are about shout so it'll be around 6000 baht for a complete new one next time.

 

Might have trouble finding one the right size for your beast but who knows..

 

Corn here is still less than 40 cm high but the nightly rains continue.  Raining slowly right now.

[farmerjo]

Yes wouldn't like to try and source an identical one here. The cores don't leak and fins are fine so will last my lifetime(with coolant),I was a little worried about him putting it back together the same as mounting bolt brackets are on the sides.To be truthful i would of given 2000 baht if asked as it's saved me a head gasket or worse.

Just need to get a new thermostat as the one hino supplied me was a smaller diameter so been running it with the old one with the guts removed out of it.The difference now being about 60 degrees operating temperature.Before i would let it get up to 120 before shutting it down,now it only gets to 57 looking at gauge and using IR gun(when rototilling). 

Going to put the heavy duty 4 disc plough behind it tomorrow and give it a proper workout.Not sure how that's going to   work out with no wheel in the furrow but will try.

The joys of farming continue,snapped a drive spline shaft that drives one side of the blades on the rototiller yesterday and i can see getting one for my model being like rocking horse crap.

Edited June 11, 2017 by farmerjo

[kickstart]

I would have thought a  radiator core , is a radiator core , if the dimensions   are the same ,it would do the job ,or am I wrong,  ie flow rates?

My little  Hino  is 4 wheel drive , one day the frount wheel just  locked ,took it all apart , a bearing  had collapsed, that was no problem , but  ,what  was a problem ,was  the small splined shaft  on the 4 wheel drive  UJ, that got well  chewed  up  ,took it all my local  shop ,he looked at it and me  and said ,"you will be lucky  mate ,none of those  about".so  he looked at  the  splin ,and come then   back  with  a nice new spline  ,then I took it to  my local guy  with a  lathe,he choped the  old  splin  off and welded    the   new one on ,this was 6 years  ago  ,still working ok ,and he put in new needle rollers  in UJ ,see if it could work for you .and your rotavator .

Around here  our 2  tractor dealers , have  a big heap of rotavators in  there   yard , a lot come over here on the back  of tractors ,and get taken off  and left in a heap in the yard  ,you might find second hand splined shaft there.

Last week the ignition  switch  went ,again local guy said finding one like looking for  hen's teeth  ,so got a second  hand one , 350 baht, then trying to shift cross head screws that have been they for 40 years  ,on the  tractor dash , glad of my  equally as  old  impact  driver .

Thai's   a very adapt at keeping things  moving. 

         

 

[farmerjo]

I figured  the only way to get my rototiller fixed was to have a cunning plan.

Since it's my birthday tomorrow i went and bought a new one from the same dealer i got the old one about 8 years ago.

When the guy dropped off the new one this arvo i said take the old one back to shop and fix so i have a spare unit.

He didn't seem pleased to take it i explained i bought it from  them and they only know the brand and model to get the new shaft.

So on the back of truck it went.The old one is a different design to the standard here,it has a splined drive shaft out each side of gearbox which support  and drive the blades.No end bearing supports.

Here''s the new one,my only spec's were make  sure it's gear drive not chain,and adjustable bottom mounts for cat 1,2,3.

It's the 6 foot wide model so will find out where the shear pin is located as  he didn't know.

Only the bigger model comes with a clutch. 58,000 baht.

 

 

Edited June 13, 2017 by farmerjo

[farmerjo]

Neighbours corn doing well with that early april planting.

Mine is going back into the ground and once field is levelled,going into jasmine rice.

If i have to set the harvester for 3 rai of cowneow rice for FIL,might as well do another 15 and the land will be level once and for all.

 

 

 

[kickstart]

Our corn in the garden , about 50%  is  now  an ex crop ,just  to much  rain ,the  icing on the cake was another  61  mm   last night .

We  cut some grass  for silage yesterday , now sat in water  ,when we can chop it ,I do not know ,with more rain  forecast.

That  photo of yours, could well be around here ,  crops well forward  for time of year , son in law  a rice farmer  near here  ,has sown  his  crop, 10 days ago  before he was pumping water in to the rice field , to work the land ,2-3 days ago  pumping it out ,to much water  for the new seeds ,joys of farming ,again .

[kickstart]

Been a bit quite  around here  of late ,been  talking   to a farmer to day ,who  was  sorting out  some sacks  for harvesting  his maize ,he will  be harvesting  his  crop by picking the cobs ,I said "any idea  what  price you will be geting  for your crop",he said  "A  Toll-Gair",which according  to my  Thai dictionary  means A rich Chinese  merchant  ,will be paying 4.50 kg for his crop ,which is a bold move ,as most buyers do not announce  they price until harvesting starts ,and  farmers  have not a lot of  choice  of  where to  send there  crop, and other buyers  now have a bench mark  to work on .

But  for the past 2-3 years,  farmers harvesting  they crop  by picking the cobs  has dropped  by about  50%   most now get a combine in to do the job . And pricing could  be a different structure.

But harvesting will be at least 6 weeks away, and if this weather keeps up a wet one, with some high moisture crops around.

[farmerjo]

Hi KS,

I got my harvester out yesterday and gave it a run to clear all the creatures out of it.

Cause i used it previously to harvest sunn hemp i have a few mods to do for corn.

Change the rotor spikes(corn are shorter and thicker),adjust the broad elevator drum up 2 notches to allow for more bulk material and change screen to the corn one.

My crop is horrible but will try to salvage something of it.Out of the 10 rai left,4 might be ok and the rest just couldn't handle the amount of rain we've had for that heavy clay soil.

In the same boat,when will the weather clear to get a crack at it.

On a brighter note the 5 rai of corn i harrowed back into the ground and planted to jasmine rice is going well. 

[wayned]

Unlike most of the reports that I have seen, the rain here has been exactly what was needed.  A long slow nightly rain with almost no standing water in the morning.  All of the corn has tasseled and cobs are forming,(had some stir fried baby corn yesterday) and unless there's  some horrible weather between now and harvest time, about 6-8 weeks, it will be a "bumper" crop.  Of course that will most likely be offset by low prices.  The beasts are being readied as I type.

[kickstart]

Hi wayned

                As the crow flys  we are not so far away  and like you the  rain has been perfect ( except  for  us  trying to make some grass  silage , getting a 24-36 hour wilt on the grass before chopping  has been not easy ), like you it should be a bumper crop ,did see a crop this morning  that was turning ,could harvest that one in  30 days.

Later sown crops could have a problem, we have a habit of having a bit of a drought about  August time , in this area, some crops could suffer, but the way things are going this year who knows.  

Some thing I forgot  last night ,last years low prices were  partly due to low price  imports of  corn from  Cambodia ,nearly all  still on the cob ,if they  have had a  good growing season , like us ,this year , and  more  gets imported into Thailand ,that will not do the  local corn price  a lot of good, that 4.50 baht/kg  price , could be a good price .

Not seen  crops  this  year  so tall for a lot of years ,if some of our local  dairy farmers  got their act together, and bought  a standing crop of maize , from a  corn farmer, and made it in to  maize silage , what  some farmers spend on rice straw  in a year, the main  sauce  of forage for Thai  dairy  cows ,and a poor quality  feed as well , some maize silage  would do  them a lot of good ,  would push production  up ,and cost wise  not  a lot in it , but this is Thailand , and things happen  slowly /very slowly , and I would say  the grower  might be pleased  to sell his crop as a standing  crop , might well get a better price than harvesting  his crop. 

[kickstart]

On 18/07/2017 at 9:34 AM, wayned said:

.  Of course that will most likely be offset by low prices.  

1

Your prophecy  seems  to have come true, driving  down a Soi  last evening, come across 2 combines  harvesting a  crop  of maize ,looked like  a 25 rie  block  asked  what  price they were  getting   4.80 baht/kg  @ 33% moisture , most early  harvesters  get a  good price ,then the price drops back  as the  main crops come in .

If that price holds  it means  farmers selling corn still on the cob  will be only payed about  3 baht /kg ,we got the last time we grew maize 7 years ago now ,and I  thought  from my last post 4.80baht/kg  was for corn still on the cob , not harvested grain.

No  one  is going to get fat  this year ,again  . 

[farmerjo]

Totally agree KS.

With the current price you would need around 650 kg/rai to break even.

Will be interesting to see what sort of yields are out there this year,maybe once Wayned gets the beasts wound up he could give us an idea.

 

[wayned]

Nothing around here will be ready for harvest until at least late August, early September (other than the occasional few ears of bay corn that I steal for stir fry, just about gone).  No price info available right now.

[kickstart]

Couple of pictures I took this evening ,just as I got there I heard a squawk, from the combine , driver got out  and said I want a 28 mm  spanner , belt slipping ,not surprised  going through this rubbish ,in the corner of a field , once he  got going in to open country ,it went  ok ,a look in the truck at  tipped  the corn ,a lot of  rubish in the crop ,combine not set up right ,and going to fast .

The important   bits, the price was  5,30 baht/kg ,up a bit ,@  30% moisture , this is the second time  I have been told the crop moisture  this week ,I think the buyers, are getting fussy ,and getting fed up  crop owner  saying  my crop  is ready to  harvest ,combines go in  travel 100  yard and stop turn  round and go home crop far too wet to harvest ,but most  buyers  now do check a  sample  for moisture .

The owner of this  combine is one of the biggest  buyers of maize in the area, he has 3  of these JD  combines 

[farmerjo]

Nice work KS,

I've done the mods to my Kubota and ready to go when the rain stops.

Actually a heavy downpour would be handy to flatten the weeds in the crop.

I run a modified conventional front that is more sensitive to greenery blocking the knife and when it gets thru,it doesn't flow off the straw walkers well.   

 

[farmerjo]

Got the harvester out today with a break in the clouds.

Normally would send it straight on a truck to the middleman but with the lows prices and high moisture it means double handling

with 3-4 days of drying first and picking out the chaff..

The 1st box full.This is at 106 days.

 

 

Edited July 31, 2017 by farmerjo

[farmerjo]

Amazing,some people must have spread the word at this mornings market i was harvesting yesterday.

So today i've had pickup's turning up wanting to buy the corn for there chickens.

I told them it was still wet and needed drying but they were happy to take 500 kg's so far anyway.

Going on KS'S price of 5.30 baht/kilo@30% moisture i was happy to give it to them at 5 baht/kilo 

[kickstart]

Hi FJ

         Is that 77% moisture ,if so I am  all most surprised that the  combine could  thrash  out the corn ,would have thought that would have been too wet ,you must have  a well set up  machine ,and unlike  most Thai drivers , you  know  other  gears  bar  top gear, on the combine , Thai  combine  drivers  drive too fast  while cutting ,and a lot of the  crop  goes out the back of the combine .

If you can sell corn at the farm gate, go for it saves a lot of hassle, sounds if you are one of the first in your area to start harvesting .

Around here  you see  people walking fields  after harvesting  corn picking up the  cobs that have come out of the back of the combine,useing it as chicken feed.

[farmerjo]

Hi KS,

Yes 77% but i would say green chaff in the sample bumped it up a bit.After i modified the angle of the fingers last year there is next to zero cobs left in the field.

Sample wasn't to bad but slow going,about 2 kph as any faster and the front would block up with the greenery and would have to get off and clean the fingers.Didn't really have much choice to leave it standing in the field for longer as either the rats will come or would start getting that black fungus disease on it with the rain and humidity.

I notice most silage is cut around that moisture so would these chicken farmers be using it as a form of silage to feed or they just want something to feed their chickens.Will it go off left in open bags.They didn't seem to be concerned.

On the harvester it's axial flow with a spiked rotor so does a good job of separation. (at the right speed)

 

Edited August 1, 2017 by farmerjo

[kickstart]

Was not certain where to put this ,as it is maize ,I thought here would be the best place .

Making maize silage ,just up the road from me ,this  was about 15  rie took them  3 days ,,one day they did not start until mid afternoon ,after  26 mm of rain the  night before.

The numbers ,the guy who rent's  the  field said ,the crop did not grow well,  not enough rain ,I did not say ,we have more rain ,in June -July  this year than in the past 5 years ,I would suspect he was a  bit tight on the fertilizer ,the crop  was 75 days old ,the cobs were starting to get a bit hard ,some grains will not be digested, by the cows ,just pass straight through their  system .

The buyers of the crop are paying  800 baht/ton , selling a 25 kg bag  for 43 -45 baht ,,she said that the bagers ,all Cambodian ,could do 600 bags a day  there were 8-10 workers  @ 200-250 Baht day?,bagging and tieing the  bags  that is a good days work ,the plastic bag  what the silage is put in ,and the outer ,old feed bags, would be 4-5 baht each .I saw  one pick leave with about 90  bags on board,  and sitting a bit low on the back end.

The chopper was made in Thailand ,the first of this type of chopper  I saw  last  year  come from  India, I would suspect  this could well be a copy ,cost about 180 000 bart ,some one did they home work , knowing most tractors in Thailand  do not  have spool valves fitted ,this thing  has its own  hydraulic  pump  fitted  ,the hydraulics  are used to rotate the spout ,the chopper its self-sits on the tractor 3 point linkage .and has a jockey wheel at the back .

I would say the grower of the crop would be happy , no harvesting or haulage costs and a low selling price ,and he has a nice clean field  too ,just ready to direct drill  another crop of maize .

But the word around here is , this year the rains have come early , but will they finish early  too ?

[farmerjo]

I hope the rains don't finish early.We've had a dry patch for a couple of days so been out slashing getting ready to direct seed some sunn hemp in.

Was going to rotary hoe first but the near right angle blades on it don't like bulk weeds.

In the picture,it looks like worm castings?if so i'm very lucky because my field is covered in them so must be doing something right.