I couldn't ignore farming ginger this year because of what i experienced personally last year in southern Kaduna. I stumbled on an agric commodity here on nairaland called "dried split ginger", so much was said about it that i decided to travel down to Kafanchan to see things for my self.
I experienced dried split ginger buyers troop into the different markets on market days rushing to buy the commodity - dried split ginger is clearly the most sort after commodity that Southern Kaduna has to offer.
Dried split ginger price went up to as high as N650k/tonne(for grade 1 cleaned) around January ending this year as against about N550k/tonne when i first arrived Kaf as at first week of December 2016.
There are many kinds of buyers for this product: Exporters(This ones buy only grade 1 cleaned ginger and bag them in 40kg bags ready for export, 25bags make 1tonne), Local buyers(who come to the open market to buy and then go clean them to standard and supply to exporters who hardly come to buy in the open market themselves) and then lastly, Buyers from the core Northern part of Nigeria(who bring their trailers to the open market to buy and load ginger to their location. i believe this product is exported from there to nearby Niger, Chad etc).
My interest is selling my grade 1 cleaned dried split ginger to exporters(assuming the local price will go high at the opening of the ginger season around November this year like it did last year; because as of now, this isn't the case) or export it myself.
So enough of the intro, i got some partners to do this with me and together we were able to plant about 10hectares of ginger farm on two separate locations in the same village of Tudun Wada(Kanikon) of Southern Kaduna state. Planting was completed on the 2nd week of June 2017(of course after overcoming a lot of challenges).
Going forward, i want to share updates on the farm here so others can learn. I will give update on what has been done so far now, and then future events of the farm will follow up to harvesting, processing, warehousing and eventual selling off of the commodity.

So far
First, we had acquired about 6 hectares of farmland in Tudun Wada 2 from the village head and 4 hectares of farmland from someone else in Tudun Wada 1(the farms are about 1.5km apart). They series of events that followed are:

Land Preparation - Land clearing to remove tree stumps first, then plowing the land with a tractor. Followed by spreading/spraying of chicken manure(not fresh, but kept for some months to compost). Manure was not mixed with soil yet, this was done during planting. The last thing for land preparation was making main blocks, sub blocks and rain gutters. Main blocks so that we could divide each partners farm appropriately, sub blocks to control the spreading of ginger appropriately to avoid over-clustering(we knew how many bags of ginger we wanted in a block), rain gutters to control movement of rain water in the farm to avoid washing away of ginger after planting.

Picture order(this pix were taken in Tundun Wada 2 farm):
1. Tractor plowing farm
2. Same as 1 above
3. Me
4. Carrying of chicken manure to areas tractor has finished plowing
5. Spacing of chicken manure
6. Same as 5 above
7. Creating of sub blocks/rain gutter
8. Same as 7 above









Seed Preparation - A full ginger body has to be broken into pieces depending on how many bud mouths are visible on it, this allows for multiplication; in fact, this is the reason we are farming the ginger itself, multiplication. So we organized women in the community in groups to break up the ginger according to specification. We had a supervisor to each group to keep record of what each person in the group has done for payment purposes and to monitor and make sure ginger is broken as instructed.

Picture order:
1. Women queuing up to receive their bag of ginger for breaking
2. Breaking begins
3. Same as 2 above
4. Same as 2 and 3 above





Planting - Planting ginger is quite stressful. They planters are divided into groups of about 5 persons per sub block, one out of the rest breaks up the soil in a straight line with a hoe while they other group members quickly places the seed spacing it about 6inches apart. The soil breaker then goes on to repeat the same thing he did just next to previous line, thereby covering the first line of placed ginger with soil and in the process mixing up the compost manure and the soil. This is repeated until a sub block is completed. There is a supervisor appointed for each group to make sure that ginger is planted according to specified spacing and for record keeping.

Picture 1 to 7:








Weeding -Hand weeding is ruled out because of the size of this farm. I believe it will be way too expensive to achieve hand weeding with the size of this farm because of the number of labourers you have to employ to achieve this. First of all, immediately after planting each major block; we did spray "cutlass" or "double force" depending on which of them was available in the market at the time of purchase, both are herbicides and have equal strength. Our consultants advice that we do this to avoid having overpowering weeds in the farm for a very long time. I think they were right on this one because considering the time which we finished the first major block - 22nd of may - up to this point, we do not yet have overwhelming weeds in the farm; weeds only started sprouting in some places after about 6weeks of planting that block. My guess is that we should have had a considerable amount of weed in that farm by now, seeing that the ginger itself had grown considerably, and secondly rain is falling.
A fortnight ago, we embarked on the second spraying of the farm with herbicides; concentrating only on those places where sprouted weeds are obvious. This time, our consultants disapproved of cutlass or double force because of their strength - the ginger plant is already shooting and may be killed along side the weeds. They advised us to use "diuron" or equivalent product combined with "dragon" to do the job. We used "Diutex" - a diuron equivalent - this is what was available at the time of purchase. The effect of this combination is milder on the ginger itself. The ginger turns a little yellowish a few days after spraying and then recovers about 7-10 days after spraying as far as rain is falling. A full sachet of diutex is mixed with 1 liter of water and then a full peak tin milk container of it is poured into the sprayer(which has a 16 liter container), half peak tin milk of dragon is also poured into the sprayer, and then water is filled to the bream of the sprayer. Everything mixes together and then spraying begins.

Picture of a 16liter spraying container:



Application of NPK Fertilizer - After weeding we did apply NPK and hope to apply Urea July ending.

Costing - Let me give you a rundown of costing so far for only one major block of the farm where we succeeded in planting 135bags or solos of fresh broken ginger owned by one of our partners' SEPJOCA Nig. Ltd.
*Land renting for 1 farming season plus clearing plus tractor plowing - N250,000
*100 bags(bags plus caps) of ginger bought @ N10000/bag as at the time of purchase, now N7000 - N1,000,000
*Ginger breaking labour - N75,000
*Transport/loading/off loading of 100bags of ginger to place of breaking near farm location @ N500 - N50,000
*Purchase 400bags of chicken manure @ N800/bag - N320,000
*Transport 135bags(bags without caps this time, thereby making it smaller) of broken ginger,
400 bags of chicken manure from farm warehouse to site including packing of ginger in bags/sewing of bags
and loading/off loading - N120,500
*Planting 135bags(bags without caps) @ N1,500/bag - N202,500
*6 Planting supervisors @ 1500/day - N9,000
*Spray of herbicides so far - N70,000
*25 bags of NPK 15:15:15 @ N8,500 - N212,500
*Transportation of NPK plus loading/off loading plus spraying labour - N10,000

Total so far for this block = N2,319,500.00

Our expectation: This is one part i am careful to talk about since this is my first time of planting ginger, but the community farmers claim that this is their second year of planting ginger and that ginger did marvelously well here last planting season - we'll see. Like i said earlier, multiplication is the name of the game. For instance, for the block which i gave costing above; we have planted 135bags, will we get say x20 of what we planted? Some farmers in the community claim that last year the did x25 of what they planted - we'll see. For me, i am anxiously waiting and hoping that the harvest comes out as speculated and that the price of dried split ginger goes somewhere near what happened last year at the beginning of the season in November.

Hopefully in 3weeks time i will be able to upload the present pictures of the farm(I'm not around at the moment).

Will keep u Posted. God bless you.

Thanks for sharing. We are following

Wow! you're really doing great. I'm sure the harvest will be bumper.

Very impressive. Hope to see your update soon. seems the pictures aren't showing.

I and my team plan planting ginger next season, was doing my personal research when I bumped into your post.

would it be possible for us to chat? my WhatsApp no is +2348117506773.

Wish u all the best bro!

Been following since July still no pictures or updates

Sorry all for not updating since. Please expect update latest 3rd week of November. I promised to tell everyone how the story ended and i will keep to that promise. As per the pictures not showing, may be i don't fully understand how to post pictures here(i uploaded the pixs on a different site and linked it here, surprised it stopped showing after a while). if anyone has a better way of making posted pictures show permanently on nairaland, please kindly help with info. Thanks.

OBku4:
Very impressive. Hope to see your update soon. seems the pictures aren't showing.

I and my team plan planting ginger next season, was doing my personal research when I bumped into your post.

would it be possible for us to chat? my WhatsApp no is +2348117506773.

Wish u all the best bro!

Just mail me at e.edide@yahoo.com for now.

When you harvest come and update your price here



https://www.nairaland.com/4104935/general-market-food

Above 2m to plant one block of ginger Another internet farmer looking for farming contract. 10 hectares will now be how much? 500 million?
Y'all won't relent. No real farmer has time to type this long article.

muhamm3d:
Above 2m to plant one block of ginger Another internet farmer looking for farming contract. 10 hectares will now be how much? 500 million?
Y'all won't relent. No real farmer has time to type this long article.

@muhamm3d, What is the size of the '1 block' that was started above?

iedide:


@muhamm3d, What is the size of the '1 block' that was started above?

You tell me. We both know these numbers are bloated

Ok people. its harvest time so i am live in Kafanchan. I did promise to complete this story so from henceforth to the sales of our ginger, i will try to give daily updates. I will also be able to answer reasonable questions that you may have concerning what we are discussing.

For a start, i like to show you samples of ginger gotten from three different experimental blocks in the order of the block with adequate macro and micro nutrients to not enough macro and micro nutrients.

First Pix: block with highest nutrient
Second Pix: block with just enough nutrient
Third Pix: block with not enough nutrient

I am doing this because i am interested in results and how they were achieved for future ventures.

Ginger in picture of block with not enough nutrient was also planted very late i should say - june 20 - only chicken manure was used.

Results are as per what one seed of ginger produced based on what amount of nutrient was given it.

iedide:
I couldn't ignore farming ginger this year because of what i experienced personally last year in southern Kaduna. I stumbled on an agric commodity here on nairaland called "dried split ginger", so much was said about it that i decided to travel down to Kafanchan to see things for my self.
I experienced dried split ginger buyers troop into the different markets on market days rushing to buy the commodity - dried split ginger is clearly the most sort after commodity that Southern Kaduna has to offer.
Dried split ginger price went up to as high as N650k/tonne(for grade 1 cleaned) around January ending this year as against about N550k/tonne when i first arrived Kaf as at first week of December 2016.
There are many kinds of buyers for this product: Exporters(This ones buy only grade 1 cleaned ginger and bag them in 40kg bags ready for export, 25bags make 1tonne), Local buyers(who come to the open market to buy and then go clean them to standard and supply to exporters who hardly come to buy in the open market themselves) and then lastly, Buyers from the core Northern part of Nigeria(who bring their trailers to the open market to buy and load ginger to their location. i believe this product is exported from there to nearby Niger, Chad etc).
My interest is selling my grade 1 cleaned dried split ginger to exporters(assuming the local price will go high at the opening of the ginger season around November this year like it did last year; because as of now, this isn't the case) or export it myself.
So enough of the intro, i got some partners to do this with me and together we were able to plant about 10hectares of ginger farm on two separate locations in the same village of Tudun Wada(Kanikon) of Southern Kaduna state. Planting was completed on the 2nd week of June 2017(of course after overcoming a lot of challenges).
Going forward, i want to share updates on the farm here so others can learn. I will give update on what has been done so far now, and then future events of the farm will follow up to harvesting, processing, warehousing and eventual selling off of the commodity.

So far
First, we had acquired about 6 hectares of farmland in Tudun Wada 2 from the village head and 4 hectares of farmland from someone else in Tudun Wada 1(the farms are about 1.5km apart). They series of events that followed are:

Land Preparation - Land clearing to remove tree stumps first, then plowing the land with a tractor. Followed by spreading/spraying of chicken manure(not fresh, but kept for some months to compost). Manure was not mixed with soil yet, this was done during planting. The last thing for land preparation was making main blocks, sub blocks and rain gutters. Main blocks so that we could divide each partners farm appropriately, sub blocks to control the spreading of ginger appropriately to avoid over-clustering(we knew how many bags of ginger we wanted in a block), rain gutters to control movement of rain water in the farm to avoid washing away of ginger after planting.

Picture order(this pix were taken in Tundun Wada 2 farm):
1. Tractor plowing farm
2. Same as 1 above
3. Me
4. Carrying of chicken manure to areas tractor has finished plowing
5. Spacing of chicken manure
6. Same as 5 above
7. Creating of sub blocks/rain gutter
8. Same as 7 above









Seed Preparation - A full ginger body has to be broken into pieces depending on how many bud mouths are visible on it, this allows for multiplication; in fact, this is the reason we are farming the ginger itself, multiplication. So we organized women in the community in groups to break up the ginger according to specification. We had a supervisor to each group to keep record of what each person in the group has done for payment purposes and to monitor and make sure ginger is broken as instructed.

Picture order:
1. Women queuing up to receive their bag of ginger for breaking
2. Breaking begins
3. Same as 2 above
4. Same as 2 and 3 above





Planting - Planting ginger is quite stressful. They planters are divided into groups of about 5 persons per sub block, one out of the rest breaks up the soil in a straight line with a hoe while they other group members quickly places the seed spacing it about 6inches apart. The soil breaker then goes on to repeat the same thing he did just next to previous line, thereby covering the first line of placed ginger with soil and in the process mixing up the compost manure and the soil. This is repeated until a sub block is completed. There is a supervisor appointed for each group to make sure that ginger is planted according to specified spacing and for record keeping.

Picture 1 to 7:








Weeding -Hand weeding is ruled out because of the size of this farm. I believe it will be way too expensive to achieve hand weeding with the size of this farm because of the number of labourers you have to employ to achieve this. First of all, immediately after planting each major block; we did spray "cutlass" or "double force" depending on which of them was available in the market at the time of purchase, both are herbicides and have equal strength. Our consultants advice that we do this to avoid having overpowering weeds in the farm for a very long time. I think they were right on this one because considering the time which we finished the first major block - 22nd of may - up to this point, we do not yet have overwhelming weeds in the farm; weeds only started sprouting in some places after about 6weeks of planting that block. My guess is that we should have had a considerable amount of weed in that farm by now, seeing that the ginger itself had grown considerably, and secondly rain is falling.
A fortnight ago, we embarked on the second spraying of the farm with herbicides; concentrating only on those places where sprouted weeds are obvious. This time, our consultants disapproved of cutlass or double force because of their strength - the ginger plant is already shooting and may be killed along side the weeds. They advised us to use "diuron" or equivalent product combined with "dragon" to do the job. We used "Diutex" - a diuron equivalent - this is what was available at the time of purchase. The effect of this combination is milder on the ginger itself. The ginger turns a little yellowish a few days after spraying and then recovers about 7-10 days after spraying as far as rain is falling. A full sachet of diutex is mixed with 1 liter of water and then a full peak tin milk container of it is poured into the sprayer(which has a 16 liter container), half peak tin milk of dragon is also poured into the sprayer, and then water is filled to the bream of the sprayer. Everything mixes together and then spraying begins.

Picture of a 16liter spraying container:



Application of NPK Fertilizer - After weeding we did apply NPK and hope to apply Urea July ending.

Costing - Let me give you a rundown of costing so far for only one major block of the farm where we succeeded in planting 135bags or solos of fresh broken ginger owned by one of our partners' SEPJOCA Nig. Ltd.
*Land renting for 1 farming season plus clearing plus tractor plowing - N250,000
*100 bags(bags plus caps) of ginger bought @ N10000/bag as at the time of purchase, now N7000 - N1,000,000
*Ginger breaking labour - N75,000
*Transport/loading/off loading of 100bags of ginger to place of breaking near farm location @ N500 - N50,000
*Purchase 400bags of chicken manure @ N800/bag - N320,000
*Transport 135bags(bags without caps this time, thereby making it smaller) of broken ginger,
400 bags of chicken manure from farm warehouse to site including packing of ginger in bags/sewing of bags
and loading/off loading - N120,500
*Planting 135bags(bags without caps) @ N1,500/bag - N202,500
*6 Planting supervisors @ 1500/day - N9,000
*Spray of herbicides so far - N70,000
*25 bags of NPK 15:15:15 @ N8,500 - N212,500
*Transportation of NPK plus loading/off loading plus spraying labour - N10,000

Total so far for this block = N2,319,500.00

Our expectation: This is one part i am careful to talk about since this is my first time of planting ginger, but the community farmers claim that this is their second year of planting ginger and that ginger did marvelously well here last planting season - we'll see. Like i said earlier, multiplication is the name of the game. For instance, for the block which i gave costing above; we have planted 135bags, will we get say x20 of what we planted? Some farmers in the community claim that last year the did x25 of what they planted - we'll see. For me, i am anxiously waiting and hoping that the harvest comes out as speculated and that the price of dried split ginger goes somewhere near what happened last year at the beginning of the season in November.

Hopefully in 3weeks time i will be able to upload the present pictures of the farm(I'm not around at the moment).

Will keep u Posted. God bless you.

^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^

So we are making arrangements now for the main harvest to follow.

iedide:
So we are making arrangements now for the main harvest to follow.

Thanks for the update, i am following your updates as i plan to go into ginger farming next year(next season), i have a lot of questions to ask as i have very little margin for error.

dnapstar:

Thanks for the update, i am following your updates as i plan to go into ginger farming next year(next season), i have a lot of questions to ask as i have very little margin for error.

It's okay. I will be willing to help answer your questions.

Ok lets see. We should be able to start digging out ginger on tuesday. Been busy arranging for tuesday. I am hopeful.

DAY 1: Clearing Started.

So much dry grass on the farm that has to be cleared first before digging starts.

The pictures were taken in your hotel room bah as against the 'block' mentioned in your post...

iedide:
Ok people. its harvest time so i am live in Kafanchan. I did promise to complete this story so from henceforth to the sales of our ginger, i will try to give daily updates. I will also be able to answer reasonable questions that you may have concerning what we are discussing.

For a start, i like to show you samples of ginger gotten from three different experimental blocks in the order of the block with adequate macro and micro nutrients to not enough macro and micro nutrients.

First Pix: block with highest nutrient
Second Pix: block with just enough nutrient
Third Pix: block with not enough nutrient

I am doing this because i am interested in results and how they were achieved for future ventures.

Ginger in picture of block with not enough nutrient was also planted very late i should say - june 20 - only chicken manure was used.

Results are as per what one seed of ginger produced based on what amount of nutrient was given it.

funstufz:
The pictures were taken in your hotel room bah as against the 'block' mentioned in your post...

Please is this a comment, a suggestion, a question or what?

iedide:
DAY 1: Clearing Started.

So much dry grass on the farm that has to be cleared first beforeore digging starts.

Just continue. I have been following ur thread with great interest. In fact I also went to ginger farming this year but not on a very large scale as u did. Mine just covered 15 plots. Harvest has started and I must confess that the yield is too impressive. I had little knowledge on ginger farming when I started but from ur thread I was able to pick some vital info especially the type of herbicides to be use for weed control.

The choice is all yours except otherwise...

iedide:
Please is this a comment, a suggestion, a question or what?

iedide:

Please is this a comment, a suggestion, a question or what?

Don't mind what he wrote. Keep posting updates. U have a lot of followers. U are doing a great job.

Gyengyere:

Just continue. I have been following ur thread with great interest. In fact I also went to ginger farming this year but not on a very large scale as u did. Mine just covered 15 plots. Harvest has started and I must confess that the yield is too impressive. I had little knowledge on ginger farming when I started but from ur thread I was able to pick some vital info especially the type of herbicides to be use for weed control.

Good to know you planted ginger also. Like to know about your yield; what was the ratio of bags planted to bags harvested? Please share?

Compliments of the season. I hope you had a great celebration? Any update with you harvest?
Would it be possible to contact you via whatsapp?

Are you still into this ginger farming? Can we get an update on price of dried Ginger per tonne? Price of transporting clean dried ginger from Kaduna to Lagos?