Rice growing season in Phrae

[Bangyai]

Really nice pics TY. Must look beautiful as the sun is setting. The access road looks pretty new. A picture like that ( with the parked motorcycle ) makes you want to be there just to see whats over the rise and around the corner.

[phomsanuk]

Facinating for a city [NYC] boy like me.
Why does the rice have to be planted twice?
What happens if the first planting ripens?

[sabang]

Good stuff Thet.

Slowly but surely the process is mechanising. Around here in Ubon they use mechanical rice threshers, mounted on the back of small trucks. I've also noticed more and more of those orange Kubota tractors working the fields, although the 'iron horse' is still the main beasty.

The uses they put those iron horses to are limited only by the imagination. Apart from tilling, you'll quite regularly see them hauling loads- they just bang tractor tires over the tillers or paddles, and hook it up to a cart. Or they'll hook an extra long fan belt up to the engine, and use it to turn an 'Archimedean screw' type device, for draining fish ponds or raising water to a higher paddy. I've also seen them used for turning a cement mixer.

One of the frustrations of driving in rural Thailand is those iron horses being used as carts puttering around the place, very slowly of course. Handling them is not quite the doddle that it looks though. The long handles that are used to steer the thing have a tendency to jerk upwards when you hit a bump, especially when turning- it you're not careful, they'll take your teeth out. No shortage of missing teeth around here.

[Mrwizard]

Great photo series .. thanks

[Pink Panty]

This thread is made me miss thailand a lot. It not easy living in uk when every thing is so different!
I was throught that i wont miss thailand much. But infact i really home sick! I really miss the smell of rice field in my home town now, the smell of an old memory when i was young..
Great thread ever, green for you, thetyhim.

[BarnacleBill]

Can I add my thanks for a most interesting posting. I too had been asking questions about rice planting - especially "where did the rice seedlings come from in the first place?" Now i know. I am probably better informed than my Thai "city" colleagues!

[aging one]

I too thought it was a great thread. I do love my sticky rice as well.

[thaikarl]

around our fields in phetchabun they have a 'threshing' machine that comes round the fields and cuts and threshes them. my wife had a pair of threshing handles in the shed, i couldn't figure out what they were for. she said they haven't used them in years. nice to see such good photos of the whole process. i have't been around home when the rice is grown and harvested.

[Thetyim]

I really must try and get some pictures of our local rice polishing machine.
It is a work of art.
Made almost entirely from teak with wooden bearings it must be at least antique.

The guy who owns it is old and lives alone.
Must try and get it on record before it disappears

[Isee]

a 'threshing' machine that comes round the fields and cuts and threshes them.

A threshing machine is used for hand cut rice. A harvester is used to cut and thresh the rice.

[CharleyFarley]

Please do Thetters, I also love watching the village rice mills in action, all belts and pulleys whizzing around and different boxes gathering the 3 seperate parts, gep, rice and Khao pian.

A final use for the straw after it has been used to grow mushrooms is to stick it in your garden as a mulch fertiliser for fruit trees or just preparing a vegetable patch.

It's a mucky job gathering it up and very hard graft, but hey, it's free.

[Heinz]

One question, we have just put in our "baby rice" as the wife insists on calling the seedlings and she has been aproached by the locals who she hires to plant them out. They want to know if she will pay them 2 baht a bundle, not the normal 150-170 baht a day wage and say that it will help everyone?

Any thoughts on this, we would like to hear what is "normal" in your area, we live in Chiang Rai.

Heinz

[Thetyim]

150 - 180 baht per day sounds normal to me.

[Heinz]

Thetyim, thanks for the answer it's what she normally pays, but have you come accross this 2 baht a bundle rate before?

Heinz

[Thetyim]

No never heard of anything but a daily rate.

[Heinz]

Ok, I just wonderd where it has come from, so does the Wife who is still trying to weigh up if it's cheaper.

Heinz

[Isee]

Thetyim, thanks for the answer it's what she normally pays, but have you come accross this 2 baht a bundle rate before?

Heinz

Sounds new - but I could guarantee you the bundles will be a little smaller than normal.

Depending on what size your land is etc, I'll say its much more efficient to have the rice cut by a harvester. There are a lot of considerations - main ones are paying people to cut will also require you to feed them and provide a drink or two, plus pay for the thresher etc. The other is that you could risk your rice going off due to the slower rate of cutting and thus see a chunk of your money sitting on the ground.

[BarnacleBill]

One question, we have just put in our "baby rice" as the wife insists on calling the seedlings and she has been aproached by the locals who she hires to plant them out. They want to know if she will pay them 2 baht a bundle, not the normal 150-170 baht a day wage and say that it will help everyone?

Any thoughts on this, we would like to hear what is "normal" in your area, we live in Chiang Rai.

Heinz

I'm no expert in rice growing- but! What is your planting bundle? From a quick assessment of one of T's photographs, there are approx 1600 (40 x 40) "bundles" planted in the field! How long does it take to plant such a field? If it's 2 BHT a bundle it looks as tho you could be paying out more than it's worth! As I said, I'm no rice-expert!

[Heinz]

Hi, yes thats something to think about, she never thought about the bunddles being smaller, came back with "these people are from Issan & Laos they wouldn't do that" but not so sure 5 minutes later?

We intend getting a machine to do the harvesting, 500 - 600 baht a rai has been quoted for this.

I like this thread as it's the first time I have been involved with the planting, had a go at harvesting last year, seemed to take a long time and labour intensive.

Heinz

[Heinz]

Yes, she is going off the idea very fast of paying by the bunddle, keep up the answers as I feel like I know more than she does, it's great.

Heinz

[Isee]

We intend getting a machine to do the harvesting, 500 - 600 baht a rai has been quoted for this.

Thats quite a fair rate - that will be for a Kubota DC though as the thai harvesters are 600+. Where we are based we cut at 500 a rai because its so competitive with a few new machines around the immediate area and we are cutting at that rate to take as much work away from the other machines - not a lot of money in it at 500 a rai. If we cut in a neighboring province we charge 650-700 per rai which is a much more reasonable return on the outlay for the machine.

[Heinz]

Isee, thanks for your reply, she hasn't used the machines before so it's nice to get confirmation that it's a fair rate she has been quoted.

Regards,

Heinz & Wi

[Heinz]

Hi to all,

Just a quick update to this one, the Wife did decide to pay 1.5 baht a bundle but is still not sure if it worked out any cheaper, but the work was done in one day so she was happy with that. Rates of pay varied, the top earner for the day got 744 baht (496 bundles), she never took a break all day, the next best to her was 444 baht (296 bundles) and the young lady who did not quite grasp what was required of her as this was her first time doing rice work got 195 baht (130 bundles).

We believe this idea came from a visiting Monk at the local temple, well that's the best guess at the moment on information gathered.

Thanks for the idea's & feedback,

Heinz

[Thetyim]

Just learnt something I never knew before.
That green gunge in the rice fields doesn't just happen it is cultivated for a reason.

"Some species of cyanobacteria can turn atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia, a form that can then be used by plants as a nutrient. Farmers in tropical countries grow cyanobacteria in their flooded rice paddies to provide more nitrogen to the rice, increasing productivity as much as tenfold."



^
That's a bowlful the MIL collected yesterday.
And guess what, it is edible.
Last night I had Yam Dhow (Spicy Green Algae) for dinner.
I can't say it was delicious but it was very edible and if it is the same species as Spirulina then I just saved myself a fortune.

[Heinz]

Thanks Thetyim, just let the Wife see the photo and got "Mama's favourite dish", she never explained how good it is for the rice though.

Heinz