Napier Grass

[StinkyMudFish]

Hi

We have 30 rai in NE Thailand and wanted to ask if anyone has good or bad experiences to share from growing napier grass.  A pig powered biogass power plant is next door and the owners offered to buy napier from us but I wanted to know if its a project which can turn a profit or one to stay away from.  I've got figures of up to 500 baht per MT ex farm prices for the grass x 4-5 cuts per year etc giving potential of 2,000+ mt per year but does it work out in practise and what are the setup costs for cuttings, planting per rai and water/irrigation along with having someone locally look after things long term etc.

Thanks.

 

 

 

[CLW]

First of all make sure the biogas plant needs a constant supply and sign that in a contract with exact numbers and payment.

Secondly, if you don't apply irrigation during dry season your grass will have a hard time and stop growing.

[StinkyMudFish]

Thanks CLW.  From your experience is it expensive to setup per rai or is it a case of using cuttings to reduce planting costs scaling up over time.

 

[CLW]

Thanks CLW.  From your experience is it expensive to setup per rai or is it a case of using cuttings to reduce planting costs scaling up over time.
 

The cuttings won't be expensive and if I understand you correctly, yes it is possible to make cuttings from your own plants as well to reduce costs.

[Slugs11]

Hi, there are 2 things most important for Napier grass. Water and good fertile soil.

 

In the dry season you need to irrigate, so for 30 rai then you would need a VERY good water supply. We irrigate our Napier (sweet Israeli) in the dry season, however it is more to keep it alive as the quantity of water we can irrigate is not really enough for it to grow to much. 

 

If you have poor soil, then you will struggle to grow your Napier. Our soil is not to good, so we try to add cow manure every year. We also apply some fertiliser. 

 

It cannot be stress to much, how important water is for Napier. Yes, it will survive dry periods, however it will not grow. The yields and the supposedly every 45 day cuts quoted are very hard to obtain without fertile soil and water, especially during dry season.

 

There are many places you can buy the Napier sticks, many places advertise on Facebook marketplace. Going price is 1 baht a stick. Or you can grow some, when it get old it will produce a lot of stems which can then be cut and replanted to produce more plants. 30 rai is going to be a big outlay, not only for the Napier sticks but for irrigation as well. 

 

All the best.

[kickstart]

As has been said before  you start soil fertility must be addressed ,Napier grass is a hungry crop ,and needs feeding ,the next door is a pig farm ,can you get some pig manure and spread it on the land ?,or before planting grow a green manure crop ,sun hemp  or mung beans, one of your main expenses will be urea fertilizer ,Napier will need a good 300 unit/rie / year .

We grow some Napier 1.5 rie we make it in to silage ,making about 10 tons/ year grass is wilted before chopping ,making it about 15 ton /rie of fresh grass .we applied cow manure and urea fertilizer .

We cut the grass at about 60 days old ,and get 3 cuts a year ,we have no irrigation making it during the rainy season .

You want bulk not quality ,so you would cut every 100 days? ,making a maximum of 3.5 cuts a year cuts a year ?.

So, as I said we make 5 ton/cut  at 60 day old ,your Napier at 100 day it  would be 8 ton/rie? X 30 rie = 240 ton/cut X 3.5 cuts ,a maximum of 840? mt/ ton a year ,a long way from your 2000+ mt /year, one cut would be in the dry season ,as been said irrigation will be needed.

For planting ,you could grow say 1 rie as a nursery bed ,you would need about 1600 stems/rie and then plant it out in to your 30 rie ,Napier can be used as root stock at about 80-90 days old .

For harvesting you can buy a forage harvester, an imported one is about 250 000 baht ,tractor to pull it ,a second hand Ford 6600 very about 3-400 000 baht a trailer about 80-90 000 baht, or if the project dose take off use another farmer to cut and haul  for you would have negotiate contracting prices. 

Back to the grasses, Elephant grass ,similar to Napier ,it has been reported you can get 30/ton/rie/cut,this was in Brazil ,that would be be cutting at 120 days old making 3 cuts a year ,it is about in Thailand  Napier Pack Chon has all but taken over ,we had some ,does not like land that floods ,so free draining land is needed,(ours died after becoming water logged ),Yar Elar-funt ,in Thai .

 

 

[IsaanAussie]

Exactly what does this pig farm want the Napier grass for? 

 

[CLW]

Exactly what does this pig farm want the Napier grass for? 
 

Mix it with the pig poo in their biogas reactor or the grass can also be used alone.
Europe used to do this with corn until the subsidies have been reduced.

[thoongfoned]

have a look at the pig farm, see what pigs they have. growers/finishers would be the best, they would produce more energy from there poo/pee. if they have 1000's of pigs this would also be good. you will need volume to make the bio gas worth doing. example. we have a small pit/balloon 5mx5m ish with 200/250 sow. if we were to put all the poo in the pit every day we would only get back 2 liters of fuel...

A 700 head finisher farm with a smaller pit 3m x3m will get back 5/6 liters a day.

if they have been using the gas system for years it could be worth a go, but if they have just started to use the gas i would wait and see how long they work with it. 

on facebook there are companies that set these systems up, balloons, machines ect. try and talk with them about how big a pit/balloon too how many head of pigs is needed for what sort of return of energy.

from what i have been told 1000 sow is the min for a good return of energy, 3000 sow will cut your energy bill by around 40 percent. a 3000/4000 head sow/gilt farm that then finishes most of the piglets should get payed for the extra energy that they can put back in to the pea system. 

electric is cheap here and with a tax paying farm it is possible to get a reduced unit rate from the pea. for us the bio gas sounds good but its alot of extra work (plus set up costs) for little returns. better just to sell the poo on...