Organic Farming

[Nawtilus]

I know there are some organic famrers on here and probably some others interested in it that do not do it for one reason or another and others that want to one day perhaps.

I have some questions, so if anyone knows and wants to answer, much appreciated.

Firstly, does organic farming ideally mean absolutley no chemical based fertilisers etc, i presume there are some fertilisers that are not harmfull and therefore should be ok to use.

I always thought organic was a method to get away from harmful chemical fertilisers and pesticides etc and find alternatives friendly to your health and environment for doing the same job.

A lot of organic produce I have seen here and back home in Oz always looked sickly, why is that and how do you overcome it to produce good looking fruit and veg that appeals to the public to buy and even just myself to eat.

How do you overcome pests, I had aphids, think they were aphids, invade a pawpaw tree recently, sprayed it with a friendly soap/water solution....killed the tree lol. I have heard about various mixed plants which offer natural repellants to bugs, but how muvh or many different varities do you need to use to be successfull to repell all these bugs that want to eat all your produce.

What types of natural fertilisers are you using and how do you produce it.

Interested to know what sort of percentage of your crop, you have to use to produce these methods of resistance for bugs and fertilisers.

Ok, more questions to come later as they pop up.

[strawberry]

Hi,

if you are farming with Thai,s as soon as your back is turned they are back to using the old methods.

You could look up Effective Micro organisms (EM).

I have a stack of info on this but no info on contacting them. did a course ( free ) at Surin. just went to Surin and asked the mo bike taxis about EM and they took me out to the farm there. Itspretty impressive. The folks that are pushing it are APNAN I think this means Asia Pacific Natural Agriculture Network. I consider it to be a must for Organic farming. The cost is low about 80 baht for 1 L. and that can make up to 10000 L. It is being used in Aus. I think there is a Japanese guy in Melbourne. You can feed it to animals birds fish and I also hear of people taking it for their health.

If you are anywhere near the Pichit province catch up with me and I'll give you some copied info on it.

Its amazing stuff and its not going to cost you anything.

If you are really serious about Organic farming you will be pleased with this stuff

Regards Joe

[Maizefarmer]

Nawtilus

Check out a product called Neemazal

www.vit-verim.com/en/nats_en.htm

Have just used it for the first time - very impressed with its performance - as good as the high tec modern synthetic nerve agent pesticides, which means very good.

[chownah]

First time I've ever heard of soap and water solution killing anything! I wonder what you did wrong....what's a pawpaw tree? If I can find one I think I'll spray it and see if it dies.

In my garden I use soap detergent mixed with water to kill aphids if the lady bugs aren't active enough to eat them. Usually its not a problem since usually the lady bugs are active. If you spray insecticides though you might not have lady bugs cause they will be killed along with the bad bugs I guess although I've never sprayed insecticide myself.

Chownah

[Nawtilus]

Paw paw trees aka papaya...sorry.

I wonder what I did wrong also, was looking forward to eating them pawpaws that started growing.

Surely ladybugs are not enough on their own to keep a bug problem at bay on a reasonable sized market garden or such ? not just a market garden, any type of crops, being large or small plantations.

[chownah]

Paw paw trees aka papaya...sorry.

I wonder what I did wrong also, was looking forward to eating them pawpaws that started growing.

Surely ladybugs are not enough on their own to keep a bug problem at bay on a reasonable sized market garden or such ? not just a market garden, any type of crops, being large or small plantations.

When lady bugs are active they will take care of the problem no matter what size the acreage....they just love to eat aphids and the more aphids you get the more lady bugs will breed in the vicinity and the more of them you'll have. Even the pre-mature grub like ladybug eats aphids. I think that they also eat other soft bodied insect pests too but I have had no experience with other bugs directly....maybe the lady bugs eat them so I never see them...I don't know.

The papaya might have just died because for other reasons and not the soap solution. We haven't had much luck with papayas. My wife mostly has done them so far as I've been busy doing other things.....she's not the most consistent gardener and I haven't had time to see what she is doing to see if I can see what the problem is. The plants seem to grow to about two metres tall and start to flower but then they die. It could be that there is no boron in the soil where we've planted them.since they are sensitive to boron deficiencies or it might be that the soil where we've grown them is too wet since they don't like their roots to be in saturated soil or it might be that we just plant seeds from whatever fruit tastes good and papayas can be either male, female, or hermaphorditic (both sexes on same plant) and it might be that hermaphrodic seeds are not good or the female are not or....I don't know....when I get caught up on some of my projects I intend to focus on getting some growing because it is one of my favorite fruits.

Can you describe how your papaya tree died? I'm hesitant to take a chance with the only one we've got incase you have discovered something that can not tolerate the soap solution.

Chownah

[Gary A]

I think the big red leaf weaver ants are the best deterrent you will find in Thailand. They eat most any bug they encounter. As far as ladybugs, I guess the ants eat them too. At least I don't see any. Anyone near Loei can get papaya trees from us. They are growing volunteer all over the place.

I'd like to find something to kill Makua plants. It has to be a natural death so my wife would doesn't know I killed them. They are ugly and tough as trees.

I have these problems with thing I don't care about growing like weeds and CAN'T get decent tomato plants to grow. The tomatoes come on like gangbusters, then wither and die before the fruit can mature.

[Nawtilus]

Hmm, see not so easy growing this stuff.

Anyway, the papaya tree i just used the recommended solution, sprayed the leaves that had the bugs on them, there were a lot and the next day the tree looked worse for wear, several more and it was gone.

It already had some fruit starting and also accross the road there are a couple of trees growing wild, so whats the go, mine get taken care of and die, the others grow in a dump and live, but they no fruit yet and I have not ventured over to see if they have aphids yet.

[strawberry]

GARLIC SPRAY

400Grams of garlic

8 table spoons white oil

100 grams soap (sunlight)

2 litres hot water

!. Add crush garlicto oil and difuse for 2-3 days

2.soap tohot waterallow to standuntil completely dissolved

3.mix the 2 liguidsshake and strain ( panty hose is good

I also throw in a handful of chillies.

Trial and error with solutions 50-1 through to 100-1

My idea of shaking is to use the blender and I put it into small plastic bags pop into the freezer and use when I need to.

Garlic is mainly a repellant so you need to use it before infestation.

This recipe came from Peter Bennet in Australia

Regards Joe

[chownah]

Strawberry,

The soap used you call "sunlight"...is that dishwashing liquid or is it laundry powder? Since you say to wait until dissolved I guess its laundry powder. Either way 100 grams of detergent added to 2 litres of water would make a very strong detergent solution I think although I've never weighed a powdered detergent and then added it to water.....seems like it would be much stronger than what I usually make for killiing aphids which is about three or four tablespoons of dish washing liquid (I guess, I never measure it) in one litre of water....just enough so that when you spray some on your hand it makes a little bit of whiteness from tiny bubbles and it feels definitely slippery.

I'm asking about this because Nawtilus says that he sprayed a soap solution on a papaya tree and it killed it.....this surprised me since I'd never heard of a soap solution killing a plant....so anyway I'm wondering if your solution would be even stronger than the one I recommend and thus pose a hazard to papaya plants too.....although I have not yet tried spraying a papaya plant with my solution yet to see if it kills the plant.

Chownah

P.S. Nawtilus, can you tell us what you made your solution from exactly and what the amounts were?

Chownah

Edited November 12, 2006 by chownah

[Nawtilus]

Well it was a dishwash liquid and water, around the same measurments roughly as you mentioned.

Who knows, maybe the tree was dying anyway. Can the aphid infestation be so bad that it will kill the tree, it could have been in a bad shape from the aphids and then the soap came in for the kill.

At time of spraying, it had a lot of aphids, but still looked relatively strong.

It could also be the other reason you said re something in the soil, dont believe it was too wet.

You see, this is why I am wondering about 'organic' produce and such and how it actually works well.

[chownah]

If the plant looked healthy even though it had alot of aphids I wouldn't think that it would suddenly die from the aphids. I just had a small infestation of aphids (ants were placing them on the plants) on some newly transplanted pepper plants. I knew that something was wrong because they were drooping badly (especially the larger leaves) and so I checked and the soil was wet so it wasn't water and then I looked on the underside of a droopy leaf and it was alive with ants so I looked closer and sure enough the ants had a good herd of aphids just sucking away....so....off to the shed, since its only a few plants use the hand spray bottle, fill it with water and add about 2 tablespoons or so of dish liquid, spray the entire plants so they are drenched in the solution from top to bottom especially the underside of the leaves and the tender growing tips at the top too.......then the next day I went and looked and saw nothing....went the next day and there were a few ants so I dosed them again just to be sure...and since then no problems and the plants have started to grow and they look really healthy.

What this rambling message is trying to say is that my experience is that if you have aphids you will know something is wrong long before the plant dies because it will be weak and droopy for quite awhile and the death will not be sudden but more of a gradual wasting away.....but I've never seen this with papaya so they may be different. Perhaps papaya are sensitive to detergent...or the perfume in the detergent. I will definitely try this at sometime in the future but I'm really busy now and have no time for it now. If someone out there has alot of papaya trees so they would not worry about causing a problem for one of them I ask that they make up a solution like I described and put some on a few leaves of a healthy plant and see if those leave react to it.

If it turns out that papayas are sensitive to detergent then the next step would be to try soap...actual soap is not detergent but converted oil or fat. It might be that papaya would tolerate this.....another project!!!!

Chownah

[Gary A]

The nearest leaves on our papayas are about ten feet above the ground. Kind of hard to spray soap on them without getting a shower myself. With my eyes covered, I doubt I could hit the leaves anyways. Other than that, I wouldn't mind sacrificing a tree or two.

[Nawtilus]

Aint you got a ladder.....those bamboo ones are only around 200 baht !

I might go over the road to the dump and squirt that one and see what happens, just that all the neighbours might think I kookoo little bit.

[Syduan]

We own a worm farm in Kanchaburi province producing organic fertiliser from the worm castings (vermicast), our vermicompost has been tried and tested and I can say in all honesty that you would be hard pushed to find a better product on the market.

There are hundreds of websites related to vermicast where you can confirm the benifits of vermicast, many of them from Australia.

If your interested send me an email at [email protected]

[Nawtilus]

What is the cost of this worm fertiliser and how far does it go ?

[Syduan]

What is the cost of this worm fertiliser and how far does it go ?

Application rates depend largely on the crop, condition of the soil and whether it is to be used along with other fertilisers. As a rough guide under normal conditions used as a post additive to compost 50-100 Kgs per rai is sufficient.

Cost is dependent on quantity and packaging, 1 tonne, sifted and bagged will cost 16,000 Baht not including delivery.

[teletiger]

Application rates depend largely on the crop, condition of the soil and whether it is to be used along with other fertilisers. As a rough guide under normal conditions used as a post additive to compost 50-100 Kgs per rai is sufficient.

Cost is dependent on quantity and packaging, 1 tonne, sifted and bagged will cost 16,000 Baht not including delivery.

What are the NPK values of vermicast?

Regards.

[strawberry]

Hi All,

my apoligies to Chowna, you asked a question and my PC broke down so I couldn't anwser you until now.

The soap I use is bar soap and its a little difficult to break it down. The idea of soap and white oil is to act as a spreader.

garlic spray needs to be used about every 2 weeks and after rain.

My info is that the problem with insects is that the plants are not healthy so the insects find it easy to bite into the leaves.

Using organic insect spray is good but you need to look at the health of the soil with the idea of cutting out the need to spray.

Check to see how your worm population is and if you haven't got any or they are few perhaps syduan can sell some.

much of the worms and the biomass in the soil has been killed of over the years by the excessive use of chemicals. When that happens your plants cannot be healthy they may look green but ?

An example of this is , if you go into an old forrest the trees are not infested with pests and that is because the biomass is healthy insure the health of the trees. and no one is spraying them with insecticides.

Have you ever noticed how many orchards here are kept cleared under the trees. So when the farmer sprays his trees the poison goes straight into the ground killing off the friendly bacterias and virus's. You have both pests and preditors, for instance the ladybird is a preditor (friend) and the aphid is a pest (enemy). When we use chemicals it doesn't know the difference.

so its the same in the ground, the biomass is really important to the health of the plant.

The only ways I know how to replemish the biomass is to go to an old forest and cart off some of the scrapings from the floor then scatter around the garden. so if we all do that we end up with healthy gardens and sick forests.

There is another way and that is to use Effective Microorganisms (EM) I wrote about that in my first post here.

Regards Joe

[chownah]

I have heard that worm castings make a good soil additive but I have never used it and have never known anyone who has used it.

At 16,000 baht per tonne (plus delivery costs) the 100 kg application per rai recommended would cost 1,600 baht. I can buy cow manure for 10 baht per bag (includes delivery if I buy alot and probably at a lower price as well with large quantities) and it will have about 20 kg DRY WEIGHT of manure....this works out to 0.5 baht per kilogram for cow manure dry weight.

For the 1,600 baht cost for an application of 100 kg of worm castings per rai I can apply 3,200 kg of cow manure DRY WEIGHT per rai....this is a very large amount of manure and if applied yearly would not only provide all the fertililty required for most crops if grown with proper rotations but would also increase the level of organic matter in the soil to promote water retention, permeability, and a healthy community of micro organisms and even earthworms.

It seems unlikely to me that 100 kg of worm castings would provide the same benefit as 3,200 kg of cow manure.

Chownah

[Nawtilus]

Would like to hear WormGuys reply to that.

I have heard that the worm castings and worm juice is the best about, but have not experienced it myself. I think an advantage with the worm castings is that it also includes worm eggs and this in turn puts worms into your soil and this alone has an added benefit.

I tried to produce the worms once, they ran away.

[chownah]

Would like to hear WormGuys reply to that.

I have heard that the worm castings and worm juice is the best about, but have not experienced it myself. I think an advantage with the worm castings is that it also includes worm eggs and this in turn puts worms into your soil and this alone has an added benefit.

I tried to produce the worms once, they ran away.

Add enough organic matter to your soil and worms will appear all by themselves....at least this is what has happened everywhere I have gardened/farmed....and seems to be the general experience of everyone I've ever talked to about this.

Chownah

[Syduan]

I have heard that worm castings make a good soil additive but I have never used it and have never known anyone who has used it.

At 16,000 baht per tonne (plus delivery costs) the 100 kg application per rai recommended would cost 1,600 baht. I can buy cow manure for 10 baht per bag (includes delivery if I buy alot and probably at a lower price as well with large quantities) and it will have about 20 kg DRY WEIGHT of manure....this works out to 0.5 baht per kilogram for cow manure dry weight.

For the 1,600 baht cost for an application of 100 kg of worm castings per rai I can apply 3,200 kg of cow manure DRY WEIGHT per rai....this is a very large amount of manure and if applied yearly would not only provide all the fertililty required for most crops if grown with proper rotations but would also increase the level of organic matter in the soil to promote water retention, permeability, and a healthy community of micro organisms and even earthworms.

It seems unlikely to me that 100 kg of worm castings would provide the same benefit as 3,200 kg of cow manure.

Chownah

We use a mixture of cow manure, rice husks and vegetable matter as feed for the worms, we also pay 10 Baht per 20Kg bag for cow dung. The price I quoted was for bagged (new 25Kg bags) and sifted vermicast if the buyer wants loose unsifted vermicast we can come down to 14000 Baht per Tonne.

I can understand your point but the fact remains that 100 Kgs of vermicast is more benificial than 3,200Kgs of cow manure though a mix of the 2 would be more suitable dependent on the condition of the soil. We are working on mixes of vermicompost which is a mix of castings and compost or compost which is only partially converted to castings as in many cases over use of castings will not do any harm but will be of no greater benifit.

Cow manure is very low in nutrients, may contain e coli, other harmfull pathogens and unwanted seeds plus it is also more costly to spread.

Vermicast, although itself is very low in nutrients it works as an activator ie it time releases all the available nutients and phophates locked in the soil and compost, it holds up to 6 times the amount of water of a normal topsoil, it will produce a greater yield in crops than conventional fertilisers, improves aeration and soil structure, acts as a nutural pesticide and will not burn plants.

Worms will migrate back to organic farms/matter over a period of time but we are looking at years if a chemical fertiliser has been used over a period of time.

I once visited a farm in Nakhon Pathom looking for worms and was told by an old woman there that she hadn't seen a worm in over 10 years on the other hand found Kgs of worms in the middle of Bangkok when I was collecting elephant dung.

The NPK of vermicast varies to a degree on the converted foodstuff used by the worms, but a typical breakdown is N2.3 P3.0 K0.6

All said and done I would encourage people to do their own research into vermicast and see what they come up with.

[chownah]

I had no worms in my garden patch when I started. It had been a rice paddy where only chemical fertilizers were used for probably over a decade. I applied cow manure liberally and by the second year I had worms in some places and by the third year I had worms most everywhere. Every year that I put more organic material into the soil the more worms I have....this has happened everywhere I have gardened or farmed. If you want to have a native population of worms in your soil all you need is to increase the organic matter in your soil and the best way to do that and to get superb crops as well in the process is the liberal use of manure. There is no need to wait for the worms to appear because the manure will provide all the fertility your vegies will need...at least it always has for me. For those who think that worm castings are the answer....just go do some research and find out what quantity of worm castings are produced in a field that is rich in organic material. I haven't done this for a long time but I remember that when I read it before I was really impressed. If you have alot of organic material in your soil you will almost assuserdly have worms generating more than 100 kg of worm castings every year right there on your rai of land.....but you will not get there by spreading 100 kg of worm castings on the rai every year....to get there you must add organic material...food for worms...not shit from worms...and the more organic matter the better....manure, rice straw, rice hulls, weed cuttings, anything that has been alive (except petroleum or coal).

Syduan's observation is correct....if you want worms then get dung....or other organic material...the more the better.

And I do recommend that you do some research. An interesting experiment would be to put 100 baht of worm castings on one small plot and 100 baht of aged cow manure on another of the same size.....and see which does best. Another great experiment would be to put a pile of cow manure and whatever plant cuttings you have and even some kitchen waste if you want in a pile out of the way somewhere and keep it damp......see if worms appear after a year or so...or even go find a couple worms and throw them in if you want to speed up the process and see how long it take for them to multiply....you'll probably be surprised.

Worm castings should be great fertilizer...only you can decide for you which gives you better value for your money; worm castings or cow manure.

Chownah

Edited November 20, 2006 by chownah

[chownah]

I have been looking on the internet for application rates for worm castings. From this link:

http://www.midwestorganics.net/application.htm

I found this:

".........

BEANS, PEAS, CUCUMBERS, SQUASH, MELONS, & LETTUCE:

Just like the tomatoes you will see the same fantastic growth and increased flavor of the plants. Once you have tasted vegetables grown in PURECAST earthworm castings you will not enjoy those grown with the chemical fertilizers.

Application Rate: Just before planting mix 3 or 4 lb. of PURECAST earthworm castings per 100 sq. ft. into the top 4 inches of your soil. Then use as side dressing when plants start to flower. You will have happy plants producing an abundance of succulent veggies to garnish your table.

............"

This seemed like a typical recommendation for application rate so I did some calculations...........

4 pounds per 100 square feet is equivalent to 0.2 kg per square meter.

Scaling this up, one rai would require 320 kilograms of worm castings for the same coverage.

This initial application is to be followed up by side dressing at least once and perhaps twice if needed. A top dressing regimen suggested at another internet site was 1/2 to 1 inch everywhere. I think that this coverage would be way beyond the amount used in the initial application but let's assume that to accomplish one side dressing you apply the same amount as you did with the initial application....and let's also assume that one side dressing is enough although it might not be enough.

Then at the prices quoted for worm castings above (16 baht per kg plus shipping) and applying just the initial application your expense would be 5,120 baht per rai...and the side dressing would cost (conservatively) the same.

If the 5,120 baht was spent on cow manure at the rate of 0.5 baht per kg then 10,240 kg of cow manure could be applied for the same price as the initial application.......and.......the cost of the side dressing would be another 5,120 baht and would be equivalent in cost to adding an additional 10,240 kg of cow manure!!!!!!!

20,480 kg dry weight of cow manure per rai could be financed with the same cost as the recommended worm casting application rate purchased at the suggested price here of 16 baht per kg.

Chownah

[Syduan]

I have been looking on the internet for application rates for worm castings. From this link:

http://www.midwestorganics.net/application.htm

I found this:

".........

BEANS, PEAS, CUCUMBERS, SQUASH, MELONS, & LETTUCE:

Just like the tomatoes you will see the same fantastic growth and increased flavor of the plants. Once you have tasted vegetables grown in PURECAST earthworm castings you will not enjoy those grown with the chemical fertilizers.

Application Rate: Just before planting mix 3 or 4 lb. of PURECAST earthworm castings per 100 sq. ft. into the top 4 inches of your soil. Then use as side dressing when plants start to flower. You will have happy plants producing an abundance of succulent veggies to garnish your table.

............"

This seemed like a typical recommendation for application rate so I did some calculations...........

4 pounds per 100 square feet is equivalent to 0.2 kg per square meter.

Scaling this up, one rai would require 320 kilograms of worm castings for the same coverage.

This initial application is to be followed up by side dressing at least once and perhaps twice if needed. A top dressing regimen suggested at another internet site was 1/2 to 1 inch everywhere. I think that this coverage would be way beyond the amount used in the initial application but let's assume that to accomplish one side dressing you apply the same amount as you did with the initial application....and let's also assume that one side dressing is enough although it might not be enough.

Then at the prices quoted for worm castings above (16 baht per kg plus shipping) and applying just the initial application your expense would be 5,120 baht per rai...and the side dressing would cost (conservatively) the same.

If the 5,120 baht was spent on cow manure at the rate of 0.5 baht per kg then 10,240 kg of cow manure could be applied for the same price as the initial application.......and.......the cost of the side dressing would be another 5,120 baht and would be equivalent in cost to adding an additional 10,240 kg of cow manure!!!!!!!

20,480 kg dry weight of cow manure per rai could be financed with the same cost as the recommended worm casting application rate purchased at the suggested price here of 16 baht per kg.

Chownah

As I mentioned previousley application rates differ according to the condition of the soil and the intended crop, you will also find a difference in each manufacturers specification.

I also wrote "Vermicast, although itself is very low in nutrients it works as an activator ie it time releases all the available nutients and phophates locked in the soil and compost".

I also would be more than pleased if people logged on to the site you quoted, the point being that the correct use of vermicast will impove your crops and condition your soil to a greater extent than any amount of cow dung, if anybody can disprove this I would be very glad to hear from them.

[chownah]

For the money invested you will get a bigger improvement in almost all field crops and with almost any soil condition by the use of cow manure purchased at 0.5 baht per kilogram dry weight than you will get by the use of worm castings purchased at 16 baht per kilogram...or 14 baht per kilogram.....or 12 baht per kilogram...or 10 baht per kilogram.

If anyone can disprove this then I would like to hear from them.

Chownah

[teletiger]

Around here, manure (well rotted) goes for 6 Baht per 30 kilo bag. 16,000 Baht will get you 80 tons.

Regards.