Greetings Dear Hive Gardeners! Thanks for your hard work in keeping the Community active with great posts, engagement and supporting various post concerning Garden.
I would love to share post about my maize 🌽 farm in my garden about 50 metres from my house. Last year I cultivated maize 🌽 but I was unlucky due to the erratic rainfall 🌧️. It's very sad to hear that even most of the state farms in the country to do have proper irrigation system that can support crop growth during the droughts.
So last year the price of maize 🌽 was very crazy 🤣, reaching $100 [1000gh¢] per 60kg of bag. I only had 7 bags which was very poor performance as a farmer. This year is different season altogether, the climate has totally changed. It has been raining since July in this minor season. Due the price of maize that shoot up last year,many farmers extended their farms this year. Most farms too are flourishing well.
As a good farmer, I want to always have higher yield, even though we are having a bumper rain. So, there unique cultural practices that we farmers adopt in order to achieve our target.
PHASE ONE(1)
Phase one was to plough the land after clearing the land. This was to make the soil become lose, increase aeration for easy sprouting of seeds and germination. The sowing was done by dibber since it wasn't large scale farming whereby I would use planter. Labourers were hired to help me. After 3 to 4 days of sowing the maize begin to sprout 🌱 out.
PHASE TWO(2)
Exactly two weeks of sowing, is started applying NPK fertilizer of 23:15:10, this was to initiate a quick growth of maize. The maize 🌽 grew very quickly with good stands. The leaves turned very green💚.
Top dress of urea is done after two weeks. This was to boost the emergence of the the cobs and proper development of the maize grains 🌽🌾the next action was apply proper sanitation in the farm. Weeding was done by hoes. This was to increase proper growth, support the base soil with earthing up. One good thing about using a hoe to weed the maize farm is to make the soil very lose,create enough air space and increase peculation of water.
The maize is about to tassel, I needed to continue give more attention. At times when the rainfall is too much, it turns out to destroy their growth, since the leaves need sunlight for photosynthesis. Due to giving it space of 45cm by 45cm with one stand each, there are great chance for the maize to yield good cobs.
We are still experiencing great rain everyday. Even today it rained heavily and most places were affected when I called a friend at different area. What I have to keep doing is to prune the excess base branches to increase healthy growth in the farm. I would not apply anymore fertilizer since the top up has been done. I see that the state of the maizes are okey for higher yield.
My target this year is to get 20 bags of maize this year. Now the farming trends have changed. A lot of new farmers love cultivating maize 🌽 in this minor season, since it's hardly for maize to destroy my field pest, bad weather or any other factors. Humidity is low around this time. Mostly the rain subside in late November or early December. By then, most farmer's maize have matured and getting ready to dry.
