#  >  > Living And Legal Affairs In Thailand >  >  > Farming & Gardening In Thailand >  >  Eucalyptus Tree Farming Setup To Sale Costs?

## English Noodles

As the title says, does anyone have experience in this?

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## good2bhappy

saplings are 5bht each  around 200 to the rai(under 1.5M interspaced)
land clearance cost 1K per rai
a bit of labour(piece work)
maybe some fertiliser to get them off
plant at the begginning of the rains

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## English Noodles

How long do they need to be left after planting before you harvest them? What price do you get for them? Cheers for the info.

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## good2bhappy

3 to 5 years
the longer you leave the better the price
at 3 years you can make upto maybe 3K bht per rai per year(9k at the end of 3)
5 years your anual return(amortised of course) will be better
depends whether you can wait
I would recommend the longer term

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## Chairman Mao

> at 3 years you can make upto maybe 3K bht per rai per year(9k at the end of 3)


 :Sad: 

Simply awful.

Stick with the 50k p/m job in BCC mate.

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## good2bhappy

not if you have 100 plus rai

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## Chairman Mao

3K p/a per rai is awful mate.

Amount of rai is meaningless.

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## good2bhappy

ok for an absentee land lord
continue your job and pick up a million every 3 years is ok with me thankyou

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## Chairman Mao

far better uses for 100 rai than 300,000thb p/a.

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## English Noodles

^I agree.

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## good2bhappy

but not if you are not there

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## English Noodles

> Stick with the 50k p/m job in BCC mate.


You really do hate the fact that we are not all forced to become 'teachers'. Your certainly a sad fucker, megahorn.

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## good2bhappy

I tried renting it out but was only able to get 1K per anum per rai

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## English Noodles

^In that case it would be viable, I guess.

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## Chairman Mao

> Originally Posted by Chairman Mao
> 
> Stick with the 50k p/m job in BCC mate.
> 
> 
> You really do hate the fact that we are not all forced to become 'teachers'. Your certainly a sad fucker, megahorn.


Jeepers!  :mid: 




> saplings are 5bht each


btw poodles, saplings are .50 to 3thb each if there isn't a farang sighted (I'm speaking for Isaan). 

Good luck with it, although I'd go for something different.

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## good2bhappy

^ depends on size

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## Chairman Mao

true.

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## English Noodles

> btw poodles, saplings are .50 to 3thb each if there isn't a farang sighted (I'm speaking for Isaan).  Good luck with it, although I'd go for something different.


To be honest with you, at the moment I'm just curious at what people are making from different things. Teak trees mixed with Agarwood is looking good, though I would be concerned about the future price of the agarwood because there have been so many plantations being started over the past few years in Thailand. Maybe the price will colapse in the next 5 - 8 years time?

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## good2bhappy

if you are looking at teak
think long time

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## English Noodles

^For the Teak I was looking at 15 year minimum, for the agarwood is about 5 - 8 years, I think.

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## deepee

Ever thought of growing PAULOWNIAS ?? Might be worth a try as they are more suited to asian conditions that most eucalypt species grown in Thailand.

These suckers are some of the fastest growing trees around giving straight white wood. Told the wood air dries well and is stable w/o warps and minimum splits.
Eucalypts drop lots of debris which stuffs up your soil in Thailand over time as they are non-native to Thailand- no native bugs and termites just love most of em .The leaves will not decay well.

They burn like the clappers too so fire management is of concern .

http//:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulonia

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## Chairman Mao

^^ Be careful with Eucies then poodles.

They're known to leave the soil far worse off post removal.

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## JoGeAr

Eucalyptus are the ultimate survivor species. They will poison the ground around them to ensure nothing steals their water.

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## BillyBobThai

I am planning planting 9 rai in either Teak or *Eucalyptus next year.  The plan is for my son to harvest it 30 to 40 years.  Which would be the better choice*,Teak or *Eucalyptus?*

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## Chairman Mao

*Teak.*

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## Nawty

15yo teak is still very small and not much good for anything.

A guy next to us bought 15yo trees off a plantation for 1200b each i think.

You do the math on that return per year.

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## English Noodles

> You do the math on that return per year.


B8,000 per rai.

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## somtamslap

Dragon fruit and custard apple trees are where its at..

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## English Noodles

What's the deal with those? Harvest times, prices, numbers per rai etc. :Smile:

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## somtamslap

^ Dragon fruit are basically zero maintenance, apart from the first year when you may need to give them the odd drop of water..after a couple of years your looking at around 50 kilo (ish) a tree per year..they start flowering as early as May and the the fruits keep coming till October. You sell these for between 5 (in bulk) and 20 bt (outside your house or at the market) per kilo..

They're about 10 bt but you've got but the concrete pipes or posts for them to grow up which are about 60 bt each..

Same with the custard apples, no water required..need a bit more time to get established and produce a decent amount of fruit but after a few years your in..not sure about how many per rai..I'll have a count tomorra..

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## English Noodles

Interesting, sounds like a good one.

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## English Noodles

Here's a page about Dragon fruit production in Vietnam. TFNet e-Newsletter - Issue No.1 | July 2009

Looks like you could do about 250 trees per rai.

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## somtamslap

^ Yep, sounds about right..ish..reckon you could fit more in though..

*Planting:* Dragon fruit cuttings are planted 3m x 3m or 3 m x 2.8 m (from the article).... mine are more like 2m apart..

Definetly worth a thought to fill a rai or 2..or whatever..

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## English Noodles

Yeh, it would probably be a couple of rai.

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## Gipsy

> Interesting, sounds like a good one


More interesting, is trying to grow a variety of Dragon fruit not yet widely known in Thailand. 



General info:Hylocereus megalanthus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and other species of this cactus family: Hylocereus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also have a brief look here:  California Rare Fruit Growers

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## ntvillas

I have 22 Ria with 11.000 Trees supplied from AA Paper co. they are 5 meters or more in the first Year. i cut the Weeds 2 times a year and Buy Food.
other than that they are lovely.
i have 3 farms now and plant the trees anywhere i find room.
i got mine for 3 Bhats Each.  lots Boys come round selling Trees for 1 bhat but the quality is not the same.
Grow the same but the leaves and wood not same as the AA co supplies.
hope you do well 
Regards Charles

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## genghis61

> 3 to 5 years
> the longer you leave the better the price
> at 3 years you can make upto maybe 3K bht per rai per year(9k at the end of 3)
> 5 years your anual return(amortised of course) will be better
> depends whether you can wait
> I would recommend the longer term


GF has 20 rai in her name planted in eucalyptus - background this pic:



She says they're about 5-6yrs old and wants to keep them till 10-12 for better returns. 
I have no idea, her b-in-law is her 'advisor' on this. 
Willl the extra 3-5 yrs (as opposed to harvesting at 7 which is what she was originally going to do) pay off?

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## good2bhappy

nice casava plot

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## buriramboy

I have 36 rai planted with rubber trees back in 2006, should be ready for tapping in another 2 years or so, will provide some sort of return for 9 months of the year for 15+ years, then you have the lumber value when you cut them down at the end of their usefullness, think have about 100 trees per rai. Seemed the best thing to grow at the time, whether times have changed though i have no idea.

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## The Fresh Prince

If your in the area, drop into The Toby Jug on Sukhumvit Soi 50. The Thai guy that runs it has a eucalyptus farm. He's a nice guy and can give you loads of info.

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## genghis61

> nice casava plot


well . . . thankyou! when the old man dies they got 20 each, another 200-odd is managed by b-in-law all very complex in a co-operative deal but they're happy with returns; apart from eucalyptus and cassava they've got a lot of sugarcane - saw a burnoff 2 wks ago, impressive, and twice-a-year rice, and some other crop I can't remember. 
Her b-i-l is p-time inspector ag/hort for 'or bor tor' seems a clued-up chap, works every daylight hour. Almost felt guilty sleeping in every day.

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## MeMock

> Teak trees mixed with Agarwood is looking good, though I would be concerned about the future price of the agarwood because there have been so many plantations being started over the past few years in Thailand. Maybe the price will colapse in the next 5 - 8 years time?


Depends on how much 'dark wood' you can get out of each tree. How do you intend to 'infect' the tree to get this dark wood?

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## English Noodles

> If your in the area, drop into The Toby Jug on Sukhumvit Soi 50. The Thai guy that runs it has a eucalyptus farm. He's a nice guy and can give you loads of info.


I used to know Anand when he had the Toby Jug on Silom Road, years back. Never spoken to him for many moons though. Yes, he's a nice guy. British educated, his son was over the UK studying too last time I spoke to him. Next time you see him, ask him about his sons boxing record. :mid:

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## Happyman

Looked after the fire insurance and handled claims for 4 years at a JV (Taiwanese/ Vietnamese/Indonesian / Chinese)  Eucalyptus plantation in the Mekong delta?

50,000 hectares ( about 310,000 Rai) all laid out in 1km square sections separated by 4 meter canals. 
Absolute nightmare ! 

Trees were harvested after 9 years when the were about 25cm diameter.
Progressive replanting kept the annual supply of about 34,000 rai every year.

Fire was the bugger though ! 
 if one block had a fire the glowing ash clouds would travel maybe 3 blocks away and start that going as well ! 

Before harvesting a contractor would come in and strip the leaves and berries for , I think , the Tiger Balm factory.
crown/ canopy branches were sold to the local charcoal burner.
Trunk was logged into 2.5 meter sections and shipped out to Indonesia.
There it was turned into bulk tissue paper
Shipped to China and converted into toilet rolls etc.
Then to Taiwan ( via Hong Kong) where it was marketed world wide !! 

Point is the water requirements were tremendous and the labour intensive workforce required was out of proportion.
 The place shut down and I believe they now grow Maize !

Point I am attempting to make is that Eucalyptus is a pain in the rear end even if you want to go into large scale production and have a ready market for the product .
I was only into the fire risk side but I seem to remember them telling me that each tree- to reach sale size in 9 years - required between 10 - 15 liters of water each - Per day !!!



Tried to post a screen shot from Google Earth of the plantation 
If any kind soul can do it the plantation is inside the white line and the yellow line at the top of the pic is the Cambodian border  :Smile:

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