Farming In Northeast Thailand

[Pseacraft]

And yet another post by me...

I'll take back my words on the Ford 6610 tractor, even if it is an old model in the US. Apparently they are building new ones in Thailand. I just found this website for the import/distributor of Ford/New Holland in BK.

http://www.mitalai.com/

Eric

[dugdig]

Pseacraft,

Thanks for the links. I looked at all of them. The Thai one doesn't display properly. Do you know what I need to do to my computer to fix this? I know the common letters of the Thai alphabet and am very very slowly learning to read. Finding some information I'm interested in encourages me to translate a few lines and this is gradually improving my very limited skill. This link (http://www.aciar.gov.au/web.nsf/doc/ACIA-62DLWU) did not impress me. It seemed kind of fishy to me because I've never heard anyone anywhere indicate that there was a soil acidification problem when growing legumes. Maybe I'm wrong on this and would love for someone to give me some details on it but this article looks to me like someone who is funded by agrobusiness interests and if this is true then the bottom line will be to supprot artificial fertilizers since thats what funded the research. Historically this was a big problem in the USA. About 30 years ago the "radical" organic hippies started promoting no-till farming since tilling creates erosion and can accelerate leaching processes. The university farming departments were heavily influenced by fertilizer manufacturers and they weren't worried about leaching...just buy more fertilizer and said that no-till advocates were just drug crazed weirdos. Etc. Etc. About 20 years later when many farmers noticed that almost all of their topsoil was gone because their plows had started to hit rock they started to look around for a solution. Also about the same time there was an energy 'crisis' due to opec and the cost of fuel skyrocketed. That's when farmers woke up to the fact that no-till saved them their topsoil and it saved them fuel. Also the agrobusiness people figured out that the farmers needed new equipment for this new kind of farming so there was profit to be made with the switch. Also the agrobusiness people started promoting a no-till method that used herbicide prior to seeding...so they could make a good profit from the sale of herbicide. Anyway....ever since then I'm a bit suspicious of agriculture department research. Alot of it is really really good but I start out with a bit more skepticism than usual and try to keep an open mind. The thing that makes me suspicious of this article is that they only mention the use of lime in a sort of off hand manner and liming is traditionly a save, cheap and effective solution to the problem (at least in the USA)...but their is no profit for agrobusiness to tell people to use lime. Also the article says that artificial fertilizers can be used without causing acidification if done just the right way. I've heard that using artificial fertilizers is a cause of acidification generally and it seems to me that PERHAPS some farmers use large amounts of artificial fertilizers and incidentally also raise soybeans but rather than this study just stating the obvious they try to blame the soybeans and then try to develop novel methods (which benefit agrobusiness) to overcome the problem. I might be being paranoid here and completely wrong and if so then I'd really appreciate someone filling me in or helping me to see where I'm wrong. If growing legumes actually will cause acidification then I want to know so I can find a good source of lime and if lime won't do it then I really want to know so I can alter my plans altogether.

Anyway I don't want to only give you negative comments on your links. I liked them all and even kept a couple of them as "favorites" so I can easily refer to them in the future.

About 6610 tractors. When I went to the tractor dealer in town they told me that you can not get a new 6610. I told them that I saw some that looked new and he said that they were all rebuilt. I'll check out the site you referenced. But I do think that its bigger than I need but if I find a great deal on one I might consider it.

About rice straw for compost. I composted some manure and rice straw and it worked. Do be aware that rice straw has a high silica content and the rice hulls have even more. Some places I've read kind of indicate that this might be a problem. They often talk about what to do with the stuff since farming creates alot of it. It is not clear from what I've read if there actually is a problem or if there is just what it is and how it can be avoided. I can get alot of it for free and would like to use it as a major soil amendment but I'm proceeding cautiously because I don't know what the high silica content will do. Can anyone help me find out about this?

The dinner bell just rang so I'm off. I'll probably respond to sbk's post this evening.

Thanks for your input,

Dugdig

[sbk]

Check out thiswebsite : Cover Crops and Green Manures

and their abstract:

Cover crops could be considered the backbone of any annual cropping system that seeks to be sustainable. In this publication we summarize the principal uses and benefits of cover crops and green manures. Brief descriptions and examples are provided for winter cover crops, summer green manures, living mulches, catch crops, and some forage crops. To impart a sense of the importance of these practices in sustainable farming, we summarize the effect of cover crops and green manures on: organic matter and soil structure, nitrogen production, soil microbial activity, nutrient enhancement, rooting action, weed suppression, and soil and water conservation. Management issues addressed include vegetation management, limitations of cover crops, use in crop rotations, use in pest management, and economics of cover crops. A selection of print and Web resources are provided for further reading.

Looking at the table of contents it looks pretty comprehensive. And as it is the -National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service perhaps it is a bit more believable

[dugdig]

sbk,

Thanks for the link. I kept it as a 'favorite' both because its great information and because it has dozens of additional links at the bottom. All in all a really good one stop Cover Crop and Green Manure reference!

About where the nitrogen is found in soybeans. A website from the Rodale Institute (Organic Gardening Magazine) said the 2/3 of the nitrogen in the plant is in the bean and they gave two references where they got this information so its probably correct understanding of course that there is always alot of variability when measuring this kind of thing eg variety, soil, climate and especially stage of maturity. If soybeans are grown as a green manure crop then they are probably optimally tilled in before the seeds are mature and probably at that time the nitrogen is fairly evenly distributed throughout the plant. If the plant is left to mature I think there is a gradual migration of the nitrogen from the body of the plant to the seed. THis is what I imagine but I could be wrong. Let me know if you have/find more info.

I've looked around the internet a bunch to find about the nitrogen fixing rate for soybeans and I get different answers everywhere I look....which is probably realistic since it probably does vary alot. An extension agent site from Michigan indicated that after harvest of the bean there was still a net gain in nitrogen to the soil...but everywhere else indicated that after removing the bean you either break even or lose various amounts. This was news to me so I'm glad you questioned my statement to RC. I was responding to his request for information as to where to start in building up his soil because he wants to start producing his own feed. I made a couple of assumptions about what he was looking for and I've come to think that maybe I was wrong in this. Assumption #1 was that his soil was already in reasonable shape and could support a crop of soybeans. I based this assumption on my success in growing a test plot of soybeans on recently cropped rice paddy land. Assumption #2 was that since he is farming for profit (he's raising a family after all) that he would look more favorably on starting with a crop where he could get some immediate tangible product (in this case feed) and still improve his soil. If either or both of these assumptions are wrong then cover crop/green manure is definitely a faster way to build soil.

Also I want to correct some ideas I expressed that were wrong. All of this is based on things I've read because of your questioning. First legumes can have nodules which are not active. To tell if a nodule is effective you cut it in half and look at the color. If it is white it is doing nothing. If it is red or pink it is working fine. If it is green it was working but is now dying/dead. Second different legumes use different strains of the bacteria and it is important to have the correct one. The white nodules which do nothing are caused by bacteria of the wrong strain. This means that just because the local legume weeds have nodules it does not mean that soybeans or any other legume will have what they need. The bottom line here is to check it out fully before proceeding in a big way. Third is that if you grow a legume once it does not mean that you will have the bacteria forever, just as you said in your earlier post. If you don't grow that same legume for 4 years or so you should re-innoculate. NOTE: the recommendation to re-innoculate came from a site sponsored by a company that sells innoculant so you can either believe it or not...I'm sceptical of information coming from people who have a financial bias! Boy, I'm amazed at how much wrong information I was working with. I owe you a heart felt "thank you very much" for giving me the impetus to go out and update my information. Keep up the good work!

A couple of times you have mentioned nitrogen fixing trees and in my roaming across the internet I found a few sites talking about permaculture and these people are in love with them!! Personally its hard for me to think of planting a tree in Thailand and not getting some kind of wonderful fruit!! I'll have to think about this one for a while and maybe check it out some more. There is a really beautiful (but hard to find) wood available here call mai pahdu. It is beautiful red and the locals will sometimes try to tell you that is is rosewood but its not. I've checked it out and you can buy rosewood and mai pahdu in the USA and rosewood is much much more expensive. I mention this because mai pahdu is a nitrogen fixer as near as I can tell but we've all seen how I can be wrong about stuff!! I'd like to get some seeds or starts for this one because the wood is beautiful and valuable even in Thailand.

Dugdig

If RC is reading, what do you think about soybeans fed to the cows and the manure returned to the soil versus cover crop/green manure plowed under. There are other possibilities like growing a legume/grass mix cover crop and letting the cows graze on it for a year or two and then plowing it in. What do you think?

Dugdig

[RamdomChances]

If RC is reading, what do you think about soybeans fed to the cows and the manure returned to the soil versus cover crop/green manure plowed under. There are other possibilities like growing a legume/grass mix cover crop and letting the cows graze on it for a year or two and then plowing it in. What do you think?

Assumption #1 was that his soil was already in reasonable shape and could support a crop of soybeans. I based this assumption on my success in growing a test plot of soybeans on recently cropped rice paddy land. Assumption #2 was that since he is farming for profit (he's raising a family after all) that he would look more favorably on starting with a crop where he could get some immediate tangible product (in this case feed) and still improve his soil. If either or both of these assumptions are wrong then cover crop/green manure is definitely a faster way to build soil.

Hi dug

I do read all the new posts on here, but unless there is a specific question I can try to answer, I only post when i'm in the mood for writing more than a few lines.

Your assumptions are pretty spot on, In fact while reading the recent postings I already decided to bring up the "comercial" aspects.

Our earth seems in pretty good shape, not clay soil, or rice paddy. We have our own bore hole so we have plenty of water (cheap but not free).

What I really am looking for is a crop that has good comercial value, and being able to use the residue to produce good forage or silage for the cows. Obviously this means taking all the nutriants in the plant (both "cash crop and actuall plant) out of the soil. My way of looking at it is to do this sustanibly I have to put something back.

While I have access to plenty of manure, I'm not really sure It's enough or how to effectivly appply it to the land. Usually here they have 2 crops a year (1 if sugar cain) maize in the wet season (the main cash crop, needs lots of water) and sunflower or chow phood (sorgham??) after that as apparently these need little water, they are cheap to plant but dont give the same return as maize. The problem with maize from my point of view is it is harvested when very mature, by this time the actual plant part is just dry stalk and leaves so little use as a food source for the cows.

Dtua loung (soy) and dtua lesso (peanut is this classed as a legume) are relitivly expensive to plant an need lots of water but if sucsessful (you have to remember crops do fail wich can be expensive) give very good returns (better than maize) I've been told that a good crop can give you about 10,000 a rai profit(peanut). The left over plant is one of the best foods to give cows either fresh or dryed, so for me it seems like an ideal crop, but obviously I would get none of the benifits that have been discussed as I would be using the whole plant.

We think we are going to do a test run this dry season of about 10 rai of peanut to see if we can 3 crop, we will have to water it a lot though.

Anyway my current thinking if possible would be Maize in the wet season (cash crop) folowed by chow phood or yaa jumbo (really tall grass) for fresh forage/silage making and then peanut (mabye soy) on mabye a limited scale (cash and feed). My challenge is trying to make that work sustanably. I really think that I will have to use comercially avalible fertiliser.

There are other possibilities like growing a legume/grass mix cover crop and letting the cows graze on it for a year or two and then plowing it in

I would say in your case this is a viable alternative if you dont need/want a cash crop, well really the cows would be the crop but you just have to wait a long time to "harvest" . There is a very good grass called pangular(SP) we buy it in and feed it to our cows, it needs lots of water though. Usually they get about 150 30 kg bails/rai every 45 days and is grown in old rice paddys in a simular fashion i.e after cutting they flood the paddy and let re-grow. I cant grow it here (slopeing land). Just to give you an idea the cows eat 40 bails a day of the stuff thats about 1.2 tons so as you can imagine its not just the growing, but I have to think about , collection, material handling, storage, man power ect.

My problem's with grazeing are cost of fenceing, increased exposure to parisites (from ticks), no knowlage of the quantities of grass eaten, dairy cows are fairly sensitive to the heat and dont graze that well in the day (not enough food, milk drops). No full utilisation of the crop, chow phood, maize or yaa jumbo they will just eat the leaves and leave the stork, if you cut by hand and then shread they eat all and it more digestible.

If I let them graze I'd have to strip graze i.e fence in a few rai at a time, electric fence (wire) would be fine for this but I would still need some sort of fencing around the outside as I'm not comfertable with a few million bhts worth of cows walking around with a bit of wire between them and the next field!!

Anyway thanks all for the good posts and links, its nice to see others taking an intrest, keep it up

Cheers RC

[Pseacraft]

These links are fabulous, sbk, your insight is great mind food!

Display issues with the Thai language site could be that the Thai fonts aren't installed on your machine, have this problem with the wife's machine. Where you do this depends on which operating system your running. In microshaft products check your "internet options" usually located in the "control panel". You should see a tab under "internet options" for "fonts". Give that a whirl.

Back home on the farm we never grew any grains for our cattle. We didn't have any silo's setup to dry or any equipment to crack (corn) any of the grains we grew which were for market anyway. We would grow hay for the cattle as their primary feed. Which I think would be a good thing for RC to look into.

Several good hay legumes are available and I'm biased towards Alfalfa. You could get two or three good cutting of hay off of it and then let it grow out 8 inches or so and (ideally) disc it under and plant either a different crop over it or another alfalfa crop. You get a really good win win with alfalfa in my biased opinon. If you have a good water supply then getting several cuttings would be very practical and the high quality hay would show up as an increased milk production. Something worth looking into. This is what I'd like to do with our land as we have five good sized ponds aligned around our paddies.

I'll have to look into the silicate levels for rice straw. I believe that the heavy clay soils of Thailand are mostly silicates in the first place. I've never heard of straw (in general) having a high silicate issue. I chased around the inet and found some info about burning wheat & rice straw in paper mills with a byproduct called "Black Liquor" which has a very high silicate level. (see: http://www.emcentre.com/unepweb/tec_case/p...ecovery/r10.htm ) I had no idea what this material was so I found this: "Black liquor is a recycled byproduct formed during the pulping of wood in the papermaking industry. In this process, lignin is separated from cellulose, with the latter forming the paper fibers. Black liquor is the combination of the lignin residue with water and the chemicals used for the extraction. Black liquor represents the fifth largest source of energy in the country and is burned in a recovery boiler. The boiler produces steam and electricity and recovers the inorganic chemicals for recycling throughout the process." here: http://www2.et.byu.edu:8080/~larryb/BlackLiquor.htm

The issue of high silicates from paper milling also applies to using wood pulp to fuel the boilers so I don't believe it is an issue for the straw being plowed under.

Time to dig more dirt!

eric

[dugdig]

Pseacraft,

Thanks for helping me get Thai language websites displaying correctly. I did what you said and it worked perfectly.

I'm not sure if alfalfa will work in Thailand. Where I grew up they don't plant alfalfa every year. Once its planted they leave it for several years...I don't know how many...may five or so..not sure. The link below has a table showing that alfalfa does poorly in wet. I think that the rainy season here would damage it severly if not kill it outright....just a guess on my part so don't rely only on my opinion here.

http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/.../DC5963t.html#1

About the composition of rice straw: I believe that it contains 'silica' not 'silicates'. I don't know if this makes a difference or not. Rice hulls are very high in silica and if they are burned at a low temperature they produce amorphous silica like the stuff used to make aerogels. If burned at high temperatures it makes crystaline silica like sand I guess..but don't know for sure. Evidentally the amorphous silica is soluble but the crystaline is not and the amorphous can be utilized by plants but I'm still not sure if very large amounts are a problem. Rice hulls are really easy to handle and can be used as a mulch on vegetables very easily. If I knew there would be no problem I might want to mulch my entire garden with an inch of this stuff everytime I till. I think that this could also be used almost like instant soil conditioner. I think it could make heavy clays quite permeable right away...and I am aware of the carbon/nitrogen ratio so I know I'd have to add nitrogen along with the hulls...I'd probably use manure. I've got a small plot where I used about an inch of hulls last year so I'll use it as my test plot and do the same this year. I'm willing to try this but sometimes problems don't show up for a few years so I'm trying to find someone or someplace with experience with this. One thing I have notice is that if you leave a pile of rice straw maybe 1 meter thick and then let it melt away into the soil over a period of several months through a rainy season it kills everything underneath it really well and it takes awhile for stuff to start growing there. I'm not trying to say that this indicates a problem but I've never seen this with other organic debris. This might be really useful as a weed control strategy if you have a patch of some really nasty weed that you are having a hard time killing you might try piling rice straw on it. I've not tried seeding on the bare patch to see if stuff grows well when the straw is gone but its on my mental list of things to try. WE've only had our land since January and I've had to return to the USA once for a couple of month since so I'm really just getting started.

Dugdig

RC, You mention having a bore hole for water. I'll probably have to do some of this in the dry season. Our water is about 3-1/2 meters deep in the dry season I think. I'm thinking about using a tractor and one of those tube pumps. Know anything about them or how much water I can pump per litre of diesel fuel?

About corn stalks as feed: Do you know about making silage? You pack vegetation tightly in to an airtight tank or pit with water (I think) and ferment it. You can even add chicken manure with it and the fermenting bacteria will convert the nitrogen in the manure into protein suitable for animal feed. I read on the internet about this being done for pig food. I know it sounds crazy to use chicken manure in feed but that is what they said they did. This might work for the dry corn stalks as you describe them but maybe not. There has been a program to promote silage production in THailand so you might ask the local farming agent if they have these in Thailand.

Peanuts are legumes and I've heard that using the waste as feed is great just like you say. You mention that soy and p-nuts are a bit risky which reminds me of an important point. Soils rich in organic matter and organisms will perform better under conditions where crops will fail when artificial fertilizers and pesticides have damaged the soil. Usually you can't get a yield quite as good as with artificial fertilizers but on the other hand your bad years won't be so bad either. THis is one of the reasons why creating healthy soil can be commercially feasible even though if you calculate profit based on good yields the artificial approach seems to be more profitable....at least thats what I've read mostly from sources with a strong organic bias.

About chow phood or yaa jumbo as forage/silage: I think that forage means grazing. I thought you had decided against grazing. Do you mean silage here or hay? Usually grass is used as cut feed or hay from everything I have read (no direct experience here) and I've never heard of it being used for silage.

About pangola grass: I think this is the one you mentioned. It sounds great and I think I'll try it. Is this grass a better quality so the cows will eat it all when grazing or does it have the tough stalk like yaa jumbo? One thing that is not so good about it is that from what I've read it is not good for a legume/grass mix because it grows so vigorously that it will crowd out the legume. This probably has a benefit, though, because I'm hoping it means that it will crowd out many weeds too.

How to apply manure: I did have a job once spreading manure on a field when I was 16 years old. They had a truck..about 1-1/2 or 2 ton...6 wheels. The entire bed was a slow moving conveyor belt that slowly moved everything to the rear of the truck bed. At the back of the truck bed were two rollers which went all the away across the back of the bed horizontally with long spikes sticking out everywhere on them. These rollers would spin fairly rapidly and this is what would throw the manure out. You would turn this stuff off and drive to the barn area and get loaded with manure and you'd drive to the field. When in the field and in position to spread you would engage the rollers and the conveyor belt. The result was that it would fling the manore far and wide across the field as you slowly drove forward. You should probably store your manure and spread it after it has aged awile...best to keep the rain off as it will wash nutrients away. If you do this you could probably hire people to throw it off a truck while driving slowly throught the field. I have heard of people dumping loads in the field and then spreading it with a blade (I think you call this a spade) or with a certain type of harrow....but the application is often not as even as with a spreader.

Miscellaneous stuff: 1. Legumes growing in rich soil do not fix much nitrogen so plant design you cropping cycle so that the legume is planted when the soil is at its most depleted stage. I've read that artificial fertilizer is especially bad for this and that natural fertilizers don't inhibit the legumes as much...but I don't know. 2. Tilling the soil tends to cause the nitrogen to become more soluble and be more easily leached so low till is better to conserve nitrogen. 3. Since you clearly want to be selling as much as you can you might want to learn about the 'nitrogen cycle' and learn to calculate how much you are putting in and taking out. Look on the internet and you'll find lots of information about this. You can find out how much (on average) lactating cows use and how much leaves in the milk and what percent is in the manure etc. etc. and basically you can calculate it kind of like a bank account balance. This way you'll have an idea about what's going on and how much chemical fertilizer you'll likely have to buy. It would be great if you could figure a way to not have to buy chemical fertilizer but I understand your need to make a profit. If you were organically certified you might be able to get a better price on your products...maybe not....I'm a long way from thinking about a profit and I might never get there myself. I'd be really happy if I can break even!!

About lime: Do you know if people use it there? I asked some of my neighbors about it and they know about it but don't use it. There aren't any serious farmers in my neighborhood. They do rice once a year and mostly thats all. They aren't interested in trying new stuff at all and mostly want the most fool proof methods possible. They know that they can't make much money with rice no matter what they do so they want to keep the risk factor low. They know that their children will be more financially secure if the go to college so everyone in my neighborhood (mostly relatives) seems to send their kids to college if they can.

About rototillers: Have you seen any there? There is one store I've seen here which has one model for sale. It is made in Thailand and doesn't impress me with its design. I'm looking for other options. A Honda would be great but I haven't heard of any of these in Thailand. In the USA they're popular and I've used one there before and it was great.

Dugdig

[RamdomChances]

Hi all

First off I'll correct a mistake fro my last post Chow phood is maize, and chow fang is soghrem, it was chow fang I was talking about.

Forage- I generally mean this to be any non-concentrate/bagged food it can be grazed or "cut and carried", dont know if it is actually the right terminoligy

Hay- Peas you mentioned giving and growing "hay" what exactaly do you mean, rice hay is the most readaly avalible, but you can get all sorts, peanut the best

Pangola grass (Digitaria decumbens)

For cow's it's about the best avalible here, no stalk and vert palatable more info here

http://www.fao.org/ag/AGA/AGAP/FRG/AFRIS/Data/550.HTM

Rice straw, husks (fang, grep) do contain high levels of silica you can buy grep (husks) for about 800 bht a lorry load(6 Wheel) not inc deliverey, straw varies by the season now its expensive(here) 25bht a bail, but sometimes it goes down to 10.

Alfalfa- Good suggestion, I did a bit of research and it does appear to be an excellent food for cows, after reading a bit though I do agree with dugdig's comments, and I really dont know about the avaliblity of seed ect here.

Bore hole- I'm not sure if we are talking about the same thing, my "bore hole" is a hole bored into the earth with water pumped out, into a big holding tank (16000L). I think you are talking about a pond (which also can be called a "bore" here). Anyway I've never used the pumps driven off a tractor, but seen loads, even the "iron donkeys" power them and they are very comman around here in the rice growing areas, where they use water from the Chow Praya to irrigate the fields. So I could'nt see you having problems with pumping capacity as for fuel consumption I would'nt know. I don't think it would be very expensive though.

Silage- As this looks like my next major project, I've been doing a lot of research into it, and we have a Regional Institute for Animal nutrition, over in Chinat (45km) so I'll be going there for some advice as well.

Risky peanuts!!- I did not mean to specify peanuts or soy were especially risky more that all crops can fail (esp if you realy on rain water), also peanut's and soy are a lot more expensive to plant so the risk/reward is greater, for some sort of comparison of planting costs/profit/time :-

Sugar Cain (oiy) plant once every 4 years (expensive)/profit about 3-4000 bht/rai/year

Maize (chow phood)- plant 500/profit 1-2000 bht/rai/100 days (once a year)

Soghram (cow fang)- plant 200/profit less than maize?/100 days

Sunflower (tan tawan) as above

Yaa Jumbo- 200 bht/rai/ profit- sayings on buying food/improvment on milk/beef production

Peanut/soy- plant 1000+/profit been told 10,000/rai possible/4 months??

All the above are just estimates based on various conversations, maize is the most accurate, and they all have different caracteristics and problems ie cost of fretiliser,need for water,labour intensive ect.

Applying manure- yea I thought it would come down to applying by hand, I've seen "muck spreaders" back home but not here, and probably labour would be cheaper.

Peas's Ponds- do you do fish? its quite profitable if you get it right, you can make food from most things.

Lime and rotervators-sorry dont really know anything

Various links :-

http://www.dld.go.th/nutrition/English/abstract.htm

http://www.fao.org/ag/AGA/AGAP/FRG/AFRIS/tree/cat.htm

http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/t0413e/T0413E00.htm#TOC

http://www.fao.org/ag/AGP/AGPC/doc/Proceed...nado/chap20.htm

http://www.fao.org/WAICENT/FAOINFO/AGRICUL...of/Thailand.htm

http://www.uwex.edu/ces/crops/uwforage/uwforage.htm

Cheers all RC

[mixedbreed]

I have been lurking on this thread since it started. Now it is sort of moving into an area I am in, I can perhaps contribute a little.

Some of my answers may appear uninformed considering the money and time invested in a business, but primarily the “farm” is owned, operated/managed by my wife and sister. Whereas I am a SLOB (sad lonely old bastard with young wife)

The girls get an amazing amount of assistance from the research farm at Kon Kean. They have had day schools on hay making, silage making, grass seeding etc, etc. it’s through them that we get told of up coming farm days at stud farms where they get information from other farmers on availability of specialized equipment such as manure spreaders, silarator (machine for cutting silage) etc.

We are located approx 50km north of Phi Mai (about 1 ½ hours north east of Korat) approx 500 rai of rolling hills which includes around 100 rai of rice paddy. 6 rai of fish pond. Land was sugar cane and we plowed it and planted grass seed. (Ruzzi and Gineree) pardon the spelling. Grass was recommended by the government research farm in Koen Kean.

We have a Ford 6610 2 wheel drive, reconditioned to “like new standard” (nice paint job). We have had three years of reasonable hard work from it, ( no off farm work for it). Have just ordered a new Kobota L2605 4 wheel drive, as the ford is to expensive to use for all the work.

Oh by the way, we are slowly working towards being a feed lot operation. Have a couple of pedigree bulls and around forty cows. Mixed lot of cows, as it’s all new to the family, so we started out with local Thai style cows and now moving to American Brahma’s. This is first year of silage making and large scale hay making. Built silage pit and hay barn last dry season. Number of cows run will depend on feed we can put up.

As you can see from the above we are into a bit of everything, but like I said up front, it’s more of a hobby for me than a business. Since the women handle the business and it’s a steep learning curve for them, we are taking it slowly, the best part about this is the way they realized they knew its what they wanted to do and went straight to the government research farms for proper info. They have turned out to be excellent sources of assistance.

For a first post I would just like to let you know I was here. From your post’s, you guys take it way more serious than me, and certainly are more specific knowledgeable. If you don’t mind I will chip in the odd post and let you know how things have worked out for me on a few of the topics.

Regards

[dugdig]

mixedbreed,

Greetings and congrats on you first post! AS you know since you've been reading this thread that I ask alot of questions so I'd like to throw a few your way. I know that you've got a big hobby going so I won't be disappointed if you can't help me with some stuff.

The next time you talk to the ag people at kk university could you ask them for a contact in Chiangrai or Chiangmai for farming information like the stuff you are getting down there? Someone who speaks English since my wife is not involved with anything other than the rice which she has been handling really well so I'll have to be the one making the inquiries..my Thai is pretty minimal.

What did you pay for the 6610 and was it actually mechanically rebuilt or just prettied up...good tires?...brakes rebuilt?..etc. Have you had to do repairs in the three years you've run it? I'm considering buying a tractor and a 6610 is bigger than I need (I've got 11 rai total) but if I find a bargain I might consider it. I'm also looking at kubotas in the over 25 horsepower range and 4 wheel drive. When yours comes let us know what you think of it.

Welcome,

Dugdig

[RamdomChances]

Hi mixedbreed

Nice post, 500 rai,wow thats not a farm, its a small estate , if I had 500 rai, i'd probably just do sugar cain(cos its easy) and sit back and enjoy life (I do quite a bit of that now though), good luck.

Anyway now your here I'll have to try and pick your brain, silage making, how do you make yours. I'm looking at one of 2 ways, a large silage pit, or I've seen mention of making it in bags but I thought you had to have some way of leting the moisture drain off. I've got access to loads of bags from the cow food so initialy it might be a way to go as I would'nt need to spend any thing on infrastructure.

Hay making, do you bail as well, if so what do you use, how much ect??

Are you selling hay and silage as well?

I've found advice here pretty good on farming ascpects, but not for the cows so much.

From your post’s, you guys take it way more serious than me, and certainly are more specific knowledgeable.

Dont get the wrong impresion that I actually know what I'm talking about

Anyway cheers mate look farward to hearing more from you.

RC

[mixedbreed]

Hi Dugdid and ramdonchances,

The question on the 6610 is easy. Found a place on the bypass road around Korat that had all the pieces for used Ford’s on the ground. Looks like they import in pieces. We went along and looked at/in each and picked an engine, gearbox, rear assembly, frame etc. Wrote down the serial numbers off each and paid a very small deposit. They assembled it using all new bolts, nuts, hydraulic hoses, tires etc, but not inside each component. They came as/is basis but with a six month guarantee. Did an inspection a couple of weeks later to check on it and they delivered 6 weeks later. Ran it for 7 months and the engine thru a connecting rod, so had to pay for another used engine. Hired a new operator. Previous guy got put on fencing detail for his sin’s. It was decided it was operator error rather than mechanical failure. Since then we have had almost no problems. Almost all the places who sell these used tractors do something similar, except this one allowed us to actually pick the components. Not much change from baht 500,000. The replacement engine cost another baht 40,000. They use it sparingly on the farm, it will go through baht 3,000 worth of fuel very quickly. That’s the reason for buying the Kubota. At present, rather than use the tractor they will hire workers and do things by hand, which if you have the time is much more cost effective. Last year they cut all the hay with Honda cutters, racked it up by hand and feed it into a stationary baler. This year we are buying Italian manufactured/imported disc cutter and baler, (Baht 660,00) when you do the math’s it’s cheaper to do it using manual labor, but since we have made the decision to grow bigger then eventually the economy of scale will win out. Actually the original purchase of the ford tractor was a total ego thing. (how can you be a farmer without a tractor).

I went to the Research farm (Kon Kean) the first two times to lend moral support but have backed out now, it’s better Thai to Thai. The girls go up regular. The farm notifies them when they are doing silage or hay or anything that they think we should know and off the family goes. Come back with plenty of photo’s and notes. It was through this that we built the silage pit and hay barn. (They just measured and copied the one on the farm). Wanted to do wilted Silage as they do in New Zealand, (supposedly it doesn’t stink like the regular silage and less runoff.). The farm does it the old way and at this stage it’s better we copy them, so sitting the pit became a best guess as to where the prevailing wind blows. It’s going to smell when we open it. This is our first year for silage. In a couple of seasons when we get caught up we will try the other method. The drum mower and trailers are local Thai manufactured. Have a paper from New Zealand regarding the run off from the silage pit, it can be used for feed supplement for the cows or fertilizer.(Correct mix ratio’s ) It appears the worst thing is for it to get into any water. So that had a big bearing on where we sited the pit. This year we only managed to half full the pit. (it’s built for future expansion of herd). Will let you know how we did regarding quality of the feed. They have had good support from the research farm with visit’s while we where putting up the silage.

Hope this helps a little

Regards Mixedbreed

[dugdig]

Mixedbreed,

When you bought your Honda cutters did you notice if they sold Honda rototillers? I'm anxious to buy a good rototiller. The only one I've seen up here in Chiangrai is a Thai made one and its design doesn't impress me so I want to find others and I know from experience that Honda makes a really good ones.

Dugdig

[Pseacraft]

Welcome to the thread Mix! Your setup sounds very much like my dream. I'd love to have around 500 rai. I had a very small cow/calf (only 12 head) operation as a teenager and worked on a neighbors 150 head dairy operation - to this day I can't stand milk! Interesting that you are going with Brahman, they should do very well with this weather in Thailand. Getting imported from the States because of the higher quality breeding? They are native to India you know and very hardy and disease resistant. I was never keen on them back in Oklahoma and you didn't seen many up in our area. We did see some interest in Santa Gertrudis, a recognized breed (3/8 Brahman and 5/8 Shorthorn) established by the infamous King Ranch of South Texas. The benefit was improved hardiness from the Brahman and muscle (meat) mass from the shorthorn. I think they would perform very well here in Thailand as a beef producer. I started out with few Angus cows and was crossing them with a Hereford bull but when I got into showing cattle I learned of the Chianina (Italian imports) and some of the cross breeding programs particularly with Angus. After a few shows I was hooked and shifted over to breeding Chi/Angus. These cattle are monsters! Nothing like weaning a calf at 1000lbs. Unfortunately things weren't to be when I graduated High School, the mid 80's economy really sucked in the states. I, for one, would love to hear more about how your families operation goes, maybe I can dabble in it again as a hobby.

Dug…what kind of rototiller are you looking for? The small walk-behind units like we use in the garden or are you looking for the industrial quality ones to hook behind the tractor? That's what I had in mind, I saw some pics on a Malaysian website that I can't find of one being used is a flooded rice field and there are some others made in Thailand (CMT I think) and India (Mahindra - great little tractors). With this clay soil I would worry too about the quality of a tiller.

RC...Our ponds are "empty" except for lily pads and water right now. Fish is something we are thinking about, not too sure right now. The wife is not too keen on raising catfish (she'll eat the ###### out of them) so we're going to look at possibly Tilapia as our ponds are not connected to each other or any other streams. It's a TBD later thing right now.

Alfalfa is one of my favorites as is Bermuda grass, which is native to Thailand. We always plowed under our alfalfa at the end of the year so we could plant winter wheat. Not many folks did alfalfa as we didn't get much water in our area - mostly tornados. Your right about the rainy season doing it harm but my thought process was irrigate during the dry season, cut a few hay cuttings and to till it under (chisel plow for less soil disruption) and plant some other crops. Of course if I could get a good stand of Bermuda growing I'd rather do that as an all year grass. I want to learn a bit more about the native grasses of Issan before I commit though. We plan on terrascaping our rice fields so that we will get better drainage into our ponds for the dry season and keep the fields relatively standing water free.

Rice hay is just straw to me. Very low nutrient value as it comes from a dead dried up plant. Hay to me is good ol' healthy grass dried green - it can brown out and lose some of it's nutrient value but it's still much higher than straw. Forage is any crop that is grown specifically for silage. It could be alfalfa, sorghum, corn/maize among many others including regular hay grasses. I don't know how well peanut will grow in the heavy clay in our neck of the woods. I have heard good things about Soybeans up our way.

Next time back in country we're going to stop by the Research Farm between Nong Khai and Udorn and see what we can there. We're also going to talk with a neighbor as he's a government Forester. I'd love to get bunch of land to put in some good native hardwoods for my kids.

Eric

[cathyy]

I haven't been reading this thread much, as I thought I had no interest in farming....but family will out. My grandfather was a farmer, who not only supported his family but actually got rich on 180 acres in western Michigan.

I wanted to mention the triple-cropping issue. I read an article online YEARS ago about the failure of triple-cropping rice in the Philippines where it was introduced by some UN organization to reduce world hunger. (I tried to find it online and failed. Sorry!) After a decade or so of the triple cropping, the yield from 3 crops was roughly equivalent (or less) than the yield from two crops prior to triple-cropping. So now they are stuck with triple cropping to keep even, and the soil and yields get increasingly bad. You need to account for the farmers who weren't able to afford fertilizer, and things like that, but what you still end up with is depleted soil. Using three different crops will deplete the soil more slowly than three rice crops, of course, but that poor soil is still being overworked. My grandfather planted wheat, oats, corn, soy beans and alfalfa in rotation in his fields, and he did nothing with the alfalfa but plow it under. I don't know the exact rotation, or how long he let the alfalfa grow, other than that it was at least a full year.

Now, about the rice stalks. When I lived in the Philippines I asked why they burned the rice fields. I got a good answer, too. They said that it was necessary, because leaving the rice stalks in the field to decompose not only didn't return any nutrients to the soil, but actually leached them out. So they burned them to maintain the soil quality. It makes sense to me in light of what someone said earlier about covering the ground with rice straw, and nothing growing there for a while.

You seem to want to keep cattle. I can see cattle as a good cash crop. My grandfather got rid of ALL animals on his farm. He considered them to be too labor-intensive for the return. Of course, the return is probably much higher in Thailand (in relative terms, of course) than it was in Michigan.

One of the keys to his profitability was crop storage. When you only get one crop a year, and everyone's crop is harvested within a month of each other, the man who can store his crop 6 months or so until the price increases -sometimes dramatically - has a distinct advantage. Now, there is no equivalent to the annual fluctuation in crop price in an area where you can get two or three crops a year. But the concept remains the same: what can you do to make your crop fetch the highest prices? Organic farming, as others have mentioned, may well be the way to go.

And if I'm out of line, just say so.

[Pseacraft]

Cathyy,

Your not even close to being out of line here. You had some very good input and you reminded me about the stupid triple crop concept. You probably can't find any reference to it since it failed so badly. Your grandfather was right on the money, literally, about crop storage. The biggest inhibitor of that for most people is "drying" the grain while it's in storage usually a silo. If I could come up with an energy efficient way (would love to use Solar but inport tariffs are a turd in LOS - the electrical engineer brother-in-law's research) that could be serious option for all of us - even just storing the gain for kritter feed.

We use to burn our wheat straw for very similar reasons in the states years ago too. But it has been determined that tilling it in or leaving the residue for lo-till cover was much wiser. I think if one was to actually execute an educated crop rotation program in Thailand that the "negative" effects of the rice straw would be eliminated.

I'm surprised that your grandfather found cattle (I'm assuming) to be labor intensive. Other than annual medication and tick baths, extra attention during calving season and just generally watching them a couple times a day (yeah right make that a week or month in the states) they are pretty much hands free. Dairy cows are a tadbit different. Horses are high maintenance, , my grandfather raised 54 show and pacer horses for many many years.

Feel free to add your insight and cmments here. Every little bit helps those of us who really are interested in other's experiences and concepts of thought.

Eric

[RamdomChances]

First I'd like to echo Pseacraft's sentiments, nice post Cathyy, some good points. I'm not from a farming background so any info suggestions are welcome.

On the 3 croping issue, the land has been planted with sugar cain for several years, so its been croped once a year, but the sugar cain takes 1 year to mature, so the land has not been left fallow at all.

We've pretty much decided to give peanuts a go but only do about 10 rai, I'm probably going to invest in a sprinkler system, we will move the 10 rai plot for peanuts around so at least not all the land will be triple croped. Maize in the wet season, with "yaa jumbo" after that as purly a food crop for the cows. I dont know if this will work out but we will give it a go.

As for drying seed here they do use "solar power" they just sun dry it, put a large slab of concrete down and spread the seed over, let the sun do the rest.

You seem to want to keep cattle. I can see cattle as a good cash crop. My grandfather got rid of ALL animals on his farm. He considered them to be too labor-intensive for the return

Cattle esp beef are'nt that intensive here and you have the advantage of low labour costs, dairy can be a little bit tricky as dairy cows are'nt exactly suited to this enviroment, what I do like about dairy is you get regular income (15 days in my case) and you start making money from day 1. Where as beef you could get regular income eventually (with a mature herd) but you would'nt get anything for 1-2 years, enless you buy mature cows and "finnish" them, but I think this is fairly infesable for most "falangs" as you need an extremly good understanding of the worth of a cow when you buy and how much you can sell for. Charolay (sp) is starting to catch on here (for beef) as they do sell at a primium.

Pseacraft

RC...Our ponds are "empty" except for lily pads and water right now. Fish is something we are thinking about, not too sure right now. The wife is not too keen on raising catfish (she'll eat the ###### out of them) so we're going to look at possibly Tilapia as our ponds are not connected to each other or any other streams. It's a TBD later thing right now.

Do you know what the thai for Tilpia is?? A mate of mine has a fish farm he recons thay its best to do "vegiterian" fish ie bla taptin, bla sawie. He makes his own food from basicly what ever he can find ( broken rice corn, pond weed, any vegitable matter) he's got a maching basicaly like a bit grinder. You can also use dried chicken and cow manure, the fish will eat it and it promotes vegtable growth in the pond.

Burmuda grass, do you know what this is called in thai, is it good for cows ect.

Rice hay is just straw to me. Very low nutrient value as it comes from a dead dried up plant. Hay to me is good ol' healthy grass dried green - it can brown out and lose some of it's nutrient value but it's still much higher than straw. Forage is any crop that is grown specifically for silage. It could be alfalfa, sorghum, corn/maize among many others including regular hay grasses

Yea I agree with you on this rice straw is very low on nutriants, the only good things about it are its good for fiber, cheap (sometimes) and keeps well. Currently we do feed our cows on fresh "hay" made from pangola grass, we also sell it to try and keep the costs down (we have to go and collect it every 2 days). Unfortunatly they are about to put the price up, wich will make it unprofitable to sell and give to the cows so until I can grow something its back to rice straw.

Apparently if you treat the straw it makes it a lot better and more palletable/digestable for the cows. You keep it a bit like silage but treat it with urea and keep about 20 days, so we are starting building storage for that, which also will be able to be used for silage making.

Cheers All RC

[RamdomChances]

Just a few links

Have'nt worked out what Tilpia is in thai yet but looks simular to what they call here pla lat (mabye rat) here's a few links :-

http://www.thaisuperfish.com/index.html

http://www.fishfarming.com/tilapia.html

http://www.mongabay.com/fish/data/Thailand.htm

Bermuda grass:-

http://www.fao.org/ag/AGA/AGAP/FRG/AFRIS/Data/60.HTM

Cheers RC

[dugdig]

Cathyy, Welcome.

Your comments on the Philippino/a farmers is really interesting. I've asked the Thai farmers about the rice straw in the fields here. When they cut the rice they leave about 30cm of the plant and collect what they have cut along with the grain. After they remove the grain they either remove the cut straw waste for animal feed or for making mushrooms...or they just leave it in the field for awhile and usually eventually burn it. The 30cm they leave in the field either gets nibbled by cows which graze there when the rice is not growing or it partly decomposes (along with the roots) and is plowed in when they till for the next crop of rice. When I ask why they burn the piles of straw they say because the pile is too big to plow in and because burning it makes fertilizer (pui). When I ask about plowing in the remains of the 30cm stuff left in the field they say it makes fertilizer.

I have plowed a little bit using the 2 wheel tractors they use and plant waste left in the field makes harrowing and leveling the field more difficult. It collects in the rake like harrow they use for leveling and it slows you down and makes the work more tiring.

I purchased land at the first of this year and my wife is growing our first crop of rice. At harvest I will remove the cut straw and use it for mulch in my garden, animal feed, and perhaps composting. I'm the person who talked about a deep (1 meter) pile of rice straw inhibiting growth for a while and I will also use some of the straw to experiment with this to see if it is a good weed control strategy and also just so I can understand how it works better. I will leave most of the 30cm stuff in place because it is too much work to remove it. I think that the Philippino/a farmers are mistaken in their statement that the straw will not return nutrients to the field. I do believe that the nutrients returned are very small compared to the artificial fertilizers which they probably were using. Burning the straw, just like burning any plant waste, releases the carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorous to the atmosphere and concentrates the remaining minerals into the ash. The minerals in the ash are in a very soluble form and are all immediately available for the next crop grown....but they are also very prone to leaching. Minerals in ash act like chemical fertilizers...they are fast acting but leach easily. If the minerals are left in the straw (the straw is not burned but is plowed in) then they are more like time release fertilizer and don't leach so quickly. Unburned plant residue when plowed in in large amounts also has the effect of TEMPORARILY making the nitrogen in the soil unavailable for plant use. This has to do with the carbon/nitrogen ratio of the organic matter in the soil. I could talk about this alot but you can probably find it on the internet from a source more reliable than my sometimes poor memory...but in a nutshell plant material with little nitrogen (which means excess carbon) and especially if its in small or thin pieces will stimulate the bacteria and other soil creatures to reproduce and in this process all the available nitrogen will be incorporated into their bodies where it will not be available for plant usage. When the extra carbon is used up then the population explosion stops and the death of these critters releases the nitrogen for plant usage. You can take a nitrogen rich soil and till into it alot of fine wood sawdust and in about three days it will act like it has no nitrogen at all. If you wait longer....maybe one month or more depending on how much saw dust you used...the soil will return to its previous fertile condition but with improved soil texture and humus content...depending on what type of sawdust was used and etc.etc.etc. Be aware, however, that this treatment will also make your soil more acid which may be harmful or beneficial depending on your soil and what crops you want to grow...using lime or course will sweeten your soil etc. I know this is long winded and perhaps boring but I'm putting it here because Randomchances wanted input on growing crops naturally and I've been looking for a reason to explain to thim about the carbon/nitrogen ratio and your comment provided me with the prefect excuse!!!

RC,

I have ideas on manipulating the carbon/nitrogen ratio in soil and how this can stimulate nitrogen fixation by legumes...just a theory at this point but if you'd like to hear then let me know.

Also, I'm pretty sure that tilapia is called 'pla nin' in Thai. Pla nin is called 'Nile tilapia' in English. I think this is right but there are many varieties in the tilapia family. If it is pla nin then it is really tasty and...

Pseacraft, If you find out about raising tilapia let me know because I think I want to grow some too. If it is pla nin it is aroi mahk mahk...at least the way my wife cooks it!

Also about rototillers. The big ones for tractors I can find easily..its the walk behind ones I'm looking for. Since my last post I've found a kubota made one that looks really sturdy and professional and will till a swath about one meter wide but costs about 75,000 baht with the 7.5 horsepower diesel motor. It is based on the same drive train as the 2 wheel tractors use. In fact if you take off the wheels, handle bars, and tiller attachment you can replace them with the standard stuff and end up with a regular (but deluxe since it will have reverse gear) 2 wheel tractor. But...I'm looking for something even smaller. My garden has many small beds with drainage channels around them and I till them at different times so even the kubota walk behind is too big to get into the middle of my garden. I add enough organic material to my garden beds that the soil is very soft and easily tilled so I don't need alot of horsepower but I do want maneuverability.

Best regards to all,

Dugdig

[Pseacraft]

I think we are pretty close on the name thing. According to the wife it's proper name is Pla Mouted but the common name is Pla Nil and Nin - depending on the dialect. One of the wife's Aunt's is getting geared up to do fish in their pond as a hobby so will be interested in how it goes. They are really bright people and am considering a joint venture with them on our ponds.

I'm debating whether I should bring my Troybuilt tiller with us when we make the final move. It's will do a 24" swath with a 5.5 hp Briggs & Stratton engine. Pretty tough machine and the brand tends to last a long time.

I've had to limit my research time lately as my work load has doubled this week - doing the job of three people trying to meet unrealistic contract obligations. I hate this mental rat race and can't wait to get back to farming...more my style - hard work and visual results daily.

Dug, I am interested in your theories, post away! I'd like to improve this lovely clay wannabe soil.

Off to the prison camp...my best to all,

Eric

[dugdig]

Pseacraft,

I've heard of the Troybuilt tillers and all I have heard is that they're great...but heavy. I would bring it if you think it is cost effective...how much will it cost to ship? I'll keep you posted on what I find here since I'm still looking. So far I"ve found a Thai made tiller for 20,000 baht without motor. I think that the design of this one is poor and I would only buy it if there was nothing else available. I don't know the price for a motor but there are many kinds available including Honda so its no problem finding a good motor for about 10,000 baht or less...maybe as low as 5,000 baht. If I remember I'll price some motors next time I'm looking. Also I've found a Kubota which I think is built very well. I mentioned it previously so won't rehash the details here but it is 75,000 baht with diesel motor. THis is a good one and I would consider buying it but it is not exactly what I want. It is probably better than your troybuilt because the diesel motor will outlast the Briggs and Stratton and have better fuel efficiency....but its alot of money. I'll keep you posted and if you have any questions about features etc. just let me know and I'll try to find the answer.

About the fish: Pla Mouted is called Mozambique Tilapia and Pla Nin is called Nile Tilapia. They are probably cousins and I wonder if there is any real difference between them. I have a Thai-English translating dictionary and in the back are sections on birds, mammals, reptiles, insects, plants, aquatic life, geographical names, Thai dishes and ingredients, military and police ranks, and Thai government organs and ranks. Some really useful stuff!!

All for now,

Dugdig

[dugdig]

Pseacraft,

Just a bit of background before I explain my idea for manipulating the carbon/nitorgen ratio of soil for optimum nitrogen fixation. Please remember that I'm not trying to say that everything I say is correct since alot of this stuff I'm bringing up from memory from long ago..... All plants (except yeasts and possibly some other single cell plants) have cells with a cell wall and the cell wall is made of primarily cellulose which is made almost exclusively of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Plants also contain sugars and starches which are made almost entirely of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. All plants have proteins and proteins contain most of the nitrogen in a plant. When a microorganism breaks down (eats) decaying plant material it uses the carbon (which mostly comes from cellulose, sugars, and starches) to make the structure of their bodies and...especially importantly here the chemical breakdown of these carbon containing compounds is their source of energy just like carbohydrates are our source of energy. If decaying plant material has alot of carbon then the bacteria will have lots of energy food so they will start to reproduce and they will use the nitrogen available to produce the proteins in their offspring. They will continue to multiply until all the available nitrogen is used up and then they will not increase their number but they will continue to metabolise the carbon containing materials and they will have a natural death rate which will release nitrogen and a natural...but slow...reproduction rate which will reuse the nitrogen released by dying members of their population. This is all very simplified since there are thousands of kinds of organism in the soil eating each other and competing for the available nutrients but I'm trying to illustrate how the amount of carbon and nitrogen will generally influence the soil activity. If there is alot of nitrogen but not alot of carbon then there will not be any material for use to construct the structure of offspring and there will not be an energy source to provide the energy needed in reproduction so the surplus nitrogen will not be able to be incorporated into an organism and it will remain available for plant uptake and of course it also can be easily leached out of the soil.

Soils with high organic content and regular inputs of plant material are not homogeonous but contain many little places with different amounts of this or that or the other thing all mixed together. The conditions on the surface of a piece of rice straw will be different than on the surface of a rice grain which accidentally has fallen onto the soil. The organic material from last season will be more decayed than that from this season, and the stuff near the surface will be different than the stuff 10 cm down...etc.etc.etc. This variety is good since it creates a huge diversity of organisms. It is usually assumed that the greater the diversity of organisms in the soil the better the soil is...I believe this but I've never been able to answer why in any sort of scientific way except that it does create a 'time release' of the nutrients but I think the benefits go beyond this. Also notice that the smaller the pieces of plant material are the faster they will decompose because many of the primary organisms that break down this material live on the surface of it and the smaller the pieces the more the surface area overall so more organisms can find a place at the table..so to speak.

Now..on to my idea. I have read at many internet sites that if soil has a high nitrogen content then soybeans (I assume this is true for all legumes but this might not be true) will not fix nitrogen but just use the available nitrogen. Just like me! If someone wants to give me money I'll not go out and make my own until they stop giving it to me. So..anyway...if you are rotating crops you want to put soybeans right after something that really depleats the soil of nitrogen...like corn. The corn will draw down the nitrogen level way down and then the soybeans should fix nitrogen like gangbusters. But maybe this rotation doesn't fit into what you'd like to do or you really don't want to draw down your nitrogen soo far. Then my ideas is to incorporate high carbon, low nitrogen material into the soil just before you plant the soybeans. This material should stimulate the microorganisms to reproduce which will tie up the nitrogen so the soybeans can't use it and force them to fix nitrogen. How much material to plow in and when and what size of pieces etc...I don't know. It might not even work at all. Most of the internet sites indicated that soybeans use up all the nitrogen they fix but there was one site that said that they could fix slightly more than they used. Since most plant research is done by people who rely heavily on chemical fertilizers it might be that when using chemical fertilizers the soybeans only fix as much as they use which makes sense because chemical fertilizers are instantly and completely available to the plant and sould effectively shut off the nitrogen fixing. I'm thinking of playing with this to see if I can make it work. I think that if it is possible to coax soybeans to fix more nitrogen than they use then this might be the way. I might use rice hulls as my carbon source because it is easy to measure how much you are using...hulls have the consistency of sawdust sort of. But this is a bit tricky since rice hulls have a high silica content and thus not as high of a carbon content as you might expect. I'll gauge how much nitrogen is being fixed by digging up a few plants and estimating the volume of the nodules. My goal will be to be able to modulate the carbon added to a soil and be able to predict how the nodules will look on the plant. This is a long term project and while I'd like to be really scientific about this I know from past experience that its more fun to go out and work in the garden than it is to keep records so I probably won't (keep records that is) and I won't measure stuff accurately enough....oh well...life is just too much fun to be too serious about it!!!!

I've written this very quicky and I hope it makes sense. If not, just ask.

All for now,

Dugdig

[Pseacraft]

Dug,

Tremendous sense to me. We would always flail our crop residue for the reason you state in para 2, as it does a better job of mulching the material. For the longest time we used our brushhog (rotory mower) in the fields until we learned that the flail was better - smaller is better, unlike certain car commercials here in the states.

My understanding is like yours, that the legumes produce, maybe, a little more nitrogen than they need to make up for the low levels that they encounter. From looking at several school studies, I think that this is the nitrogen that is "trapped" in the plant residue at time of harvest/flailing and you can cash it out when it gets returned to the soil.

I'm pretty crappy about record keeping also. I've gotten better due to the many years in the military. Even noting your general observations are better than tracking nothing. Most folks will think you nuts for digging up your plants to count the nodules anyway. So make sure you have a couple of beers with you when you do as a cover story that they can undertand!

Is there anyway way to get your soil analyzed? This would be an easy way to keep records but I was thinking that it would be interesting to get a baseline of your soils make up before the rainy season and after the rainy season to see how much you loose via leaching. Plus it will help inform you of differences in requirements that your soil will need accross the field. Something to look into.

Enjoy the lovely weather over there...it's gettingbloody cold here. yuck!

Eric

[dugdig]

Pseacraft,

What is a flail?

Soil analysis is FREE through the agriculture university in Chiangmai (and, I believe also all throughout Thailand at ag schools). Haven't done any yet but probably should/will.

I've been looking at the internet alot for stuff like 'phosphorous cycle' and 'humus'. Previously I implied that all the phosphorous is lost when veg matter is burned. I've learned that that is wrong since wood ash has some phosphorous content as does chicken manure ash. I don't know if some is lost or not. I generally don't burn any veg residue (a practice the Thai's are especially fond of). Letting veg matter decompose creates humus which is probably the best thing you can supply your soil.

A question for anyone: The ponds I've seen here in Chaingrai will not hold water!!! If you fill them to the top it will all leak away in two or three days and the water level will return to where it was before you started filling them. It seems that the water level in the ponds is the same as the ground water level...so a pond is like a big well...a really big well! Has anyone/everyone observed the same thing? Is there a way to treat the bottom of the pond so it will hold water?...I mean short of lining it with cement(which I might end up doing). I have a klong (irrigation ditch) which delivers water for 4 days every two weeks in the dry season and I want to store some to get me through. I can dig a pond near the klong and if the water will stay in it I can gravity feed it to my garden. This way I don't need to pump it. If the pond level just returns to the same as the ground water level then I'll have to pump. I've heard of putting lime in the bottom of ponds every year but I don't know if this is so the fish are healthier or if it seals the bottom. I've heard of putting bentonite clay in the bottom but I don't understand how this is done or why it would work.

Regards,

Dugdig

[RamdomChances]

Hi Dug

I've heard of people lining thier ponds with plastic. When you dig the pond out cover the bottoms and sides with plastic sheeting and then put earth over the top. I think it just depends on what type of soil you have.

Came accross this link yesterday while looking about food stuff for cows, done know if it will interest you but is on about legumes and nitrogen

http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/t0413e/T0413E12.htm#ch12

Cheers RC

[dugdig]

RC,

Thanks for the tip on the plastic pond liner. I'll check it out from here...if you hear about what kind or thickness used let me know. By the way, I found and bought an electric fence power converter for 1650 baht and now I'm looking for the steel wire. Thanks for steering me the right way on that one too!

Dugdig

PS thanks for all the great internet links too! If you find/have more just keep them coming.

Dugdig

[mixedbreed]

Dugdig

A couple of years ago we had a “pond”, actually almost 6 rai, dug in, 3 meter deep for 1 ½ rai and the remainder 2 meter. The first wet season filled it to capacity, but dry season had it loose approx half its volume. The dry windy days, one could almost stand and watch the level drop. All this time it was still above the surrounding water table level. This year we built the wall up half a meter to bring it into align with the way the surrounding hills drain into it. Last season it had almost overflowed. This wet season it is again filled to it’s new capacity, which is now well above the surrounding water table level and seems to be holding well. The contractor who did the work had assured us it may take several seasons for the bottom to fully seal. The soil was sandy / clay and gave way to a more solid clay as he got deeper. He kept digging test holes in the bottom as the “pond” grew and what he saw in the test hole determined the different depths. There are 2 other (smaller) ponds on the farm that are approx 10 years old and I am told they sealed up after 3 years. Probably we are lucky, with the soil around here being more conducive to building ponds. It has supported rice farming, sugar cane and tapioca very well but has taken a lot of fertilizer. The sugar cane and tapioca has been replaced with grass and the coming herd of cows should produce our own fertilizer factory. Reading your ideas with much interest. Will see how much can be incorporated into operation and see what works and what doesn’t.

Regards

Mixedbreed

[dugdig]

Mixedbreed,

Thanks for the pond info. It sounds like the pond building people in Isaan use better techniques than what is used here as far as I can tell. This makes sense since water is a crucial issue in Isaan but not so here in the north. I'm not sure what I'll do for my pond but I've got until April to decide since that is when the ground water is down and when people usually dig ponds around here.

RC,

I believe that you mentioned that you need to teach cattle about the electric fence. Exactly what technique did you use for this? In my imagination I see the cows all seated in little student chairs and you in front drawing on a chalk board!!

Dugdig

[RamdomChances]

RC,

I believe that you mentioned that you need to teach cattle about the electric fence. Exactly what technique did you use for this? In my imagination I see the cows all seated in little student chairs and you in front drawing on a chalk board!!

I moved on with the times so no chalk board, I prepared slides and used an overhead projector

Relly di I say you have to teach them, cant remember, but its not teaching they have to get used to the idea of electric fence.

I.e they have to get zapped a few times before they remember not to go near it!!!

Unfortunatly when they get zapped they are just as likly to run straight through the fence as back away from it. Make sure you tie plenty of plastic backs on the wire to make it visible, mabye put some tempry wood/bamboo fencing around until they are used to the wire. If you a have field next to where you are keeping them with lots of "green stuff" it will be very tempting for the cows so be carful. You should be able to buy the wire anywhere, its not special wire or anything.

Saying all that beef cows seem to be much better behaved than dairy, mine seem constantly hungry(no matter how much you feed them) and will do anything to get into a nice jucy green field.

As an aside if any of you have neibours doing dairy who want to sell some cows of hear of anyone selling dairy cows can you PM me as I'm looking for about an extra 20 head, travelings no prob if it sounds like what I'm looking for. We usually buy around the korat area, but there is an outbreak of foot and mouth there at the moment and they have banned moving dairy cattle out of the area (but strangly not beef so i'm told)

I was having a beer or several last night with some of the locals (all farmers) they were really singing the praises of peanuts over maize (more profitable and better food for the cows) so it looks like that will be my main crop for next year.

I'm also looking for info on methods of irrigation for about 10 rai of land ie sprinklers or just pipe on the ground with holes in! I have sloping land so just cant flood it like rice paddies, any ideas/info/links would be appricated.

Cheers RC

[sbk]

RC have you thought of drip irrigation? I don't know how available it is here but in the US it costs about $5 for 100 feet of the smaller tubing and about $10 for 100 feet of the mainline tubing.

My husband and I sort of created our own version of it by installing PVC pipes to our trees then (with elbows) angled the pipes up a bit and drilled holes in the pipe and capped the end. Sort of a sprinkler idea.