Pistotita:
My 1 year Schedule for Tomato

Why must it be only cucumber?

Difference between Tomato and Cucumber
1. Cucumber is fast paced, while tomato not.
2. Cucumber brings faster return while tomato at the right time brings heavy, slamming, and unbeatable profit.
3. Cucumber requires more handiwork, while tomato requires more mental work.
4. Cucumber cannot just be eradicated 100%, but 100 ha of tomato can be destroyed. As the main man on site, you must be alert.
5. Cucumber can be rushed, but my suggestion is move gradually into tomato. Therefore, I came up with a year plan.

June - September
1. Scout for varieties which appeal to you. Sterilize your soil and get around 3 pots for each varieties. Start learning
2. Go for soil test of the sites you want to use.

October
1. Do your first nursery systematically for all the varieties just for a plot of land (scale up or down as it suits you). You will be doing nursery every month. Until you get the best for you. This is if you do not do soil test.

2. If you do soil test, you start working on fortifying or getting varieties that can with stand all the soil pathogens you get from the result. I call this Systematic trial and error.

November to January
I believe you should continue with 1 plot each month. By end of February, you should have known the best for you. Hmmmm But this is tricky as you have been working in dry season, but about to break into rainy season.

I work on getting another variety and combine it with the one I want to use. Two varieties. One to tackle the soil, the other for fruiting and to tackle environmental diseases. It is why I posted somewhere that most good seeds for advance nations do not take deadly soil pathogens found in Africa into consideration too much. It is Asians that try to add soil and air diseases tolerance in seeds. Advance nation rarely do it. Nematode, Verticillium, Fusarium 0, 1,2 are common diseases. But most varieties resist only nematodes well. The rest, they resist weakly, but the manufacturer always just list both weak, intermediate and high tolerances together without telling you the details. Also, production of smaller fruits is the opportunity cost for the combo of air and soil diseases from my observation. I think its the reason the likes of platinum, cobra produce less than 100grams fruits. This is why I ditched all Asian seeds. But going by advance style which I use, all soil diseases with bacteria wilt are super highly resisted.

In addition, I check for vigor. If the original plant is like 30cm spread, mine can be 40cm after fortifying them. If vigor is increase, a variety which produces 140g - 220g can give me more 210g -250g with few 300g fruits. Thats the power of making the fruit stronger. Again, I innoculate the soil with microbes that will make them feed bastardly. So, if the maker tells,me to use 30kg of anything, I increase it to 40 to 50kg.

I also love fortifying for drought tolerance during dry season, and flood tolerance for rainy season. Flood is a problem which will kill the best seedlings during rainy season. If you submerge my seedling in water for 72 hours, that is 3 days, they will never wilt. I believe if there is any area of the farm with flood, 3 days can be used to quickly correct it. But if you don't have that be ready that within 12 hours, if your root is soaked in water, that can destroy all your plants. And what if it happens at night?

You can replicate some seedlings by intentionally creating artificial drought or flood during trials from August to November. You intentionally use overhead to irrigate some at 6pm so you watch how they can resist environmental diseases. And many more...

These are common sense procedures I developed by myself. No one taught me.

February to early April
Move ahead with the nursery of your main production. Do it in batches also.


Note Operation is easier and smoother when you do soil test. I don't joke with it. But where to really do it in Nigeria is what I do not know. I have tried couple of places but they gave me terrible results with flaws.

You should be able to make significant amount from May to August with this approach. It depends on your style. You don't wanna use mulch and drip, please downsize drastically. This is just a guide as I expect you to adjust it to suit you.

You should continue doing cucumber, habanero, watermelon, etc for operational cost covering. Half plot is ok if you get it right. And you move around your farm to observe crop rotation. Doing a project from October to April before getting good sales is not easy. Let cucumber assist you in running your farm. My view is that 3 times continious cultivation on same spot should be the worst case scenario.

I love watermelon. And will write the intensive approach soon. Hmmm! Let me keep this one for now. Maybe in the future. Believe me dry season watermelon on just 1 plot with intensive approach is mad profit But start up is high. So, harvesting 1/2 plot every 2 weeks is like ritual money.

But the major hindrance is bad workers. No matter how good your plan is, if you don't have reliable workers, forget it. Learn from me. I have given up on them. If you think you can pull it up using them, good luck. But not me.

The belt alpha seeds looks like the skin is rough. If NO, where can I get the seeds and can it planted in Open field with regards to it no being pollinated by another cucumber. Thanks

OluchiDelly:


Have u tried Lagos state material testing centre at ojodu berger? Our firm used to send samples of construction material there and d results used to be OK.

I can write Harry Porter 1, 2, 3, 4.....on this issue. lol.

Agricultural departments always handle such tests. There are many soil tests. Tests done before digging boreholes, Construction of building and bridges, etc. These are civil engineering tests. There are also petroleum engineering soil tests which mainly is for exploration by drilling method. Even other mining resources areas like gold, precious stones, tantililum, clay, gravels, sand, etc (there are over 25 minerals we can mine in Nigeria) have their own soil tests.

The one I am talking about is Agricultural soil test. Mind you there are many soil tests in Agric. Nigeria is not just serious. We suppose to lead Africa in Agric because with what I have seen, there are geniuses here. Silent researchers making grounds. One secret I want you to know is that many seed companies need contacts with Nigeria, but are frustrated with corrupt government officials, custom challenges, and I am sorry to say no one can ever try start business easily during Buhari's time. He is known to be a creator of extremely unfriendly business operating environment in the name of fighting corruption. But let's come to think of it. Can the environment be nice when corruption is deep in the blood of Nigerians? A government official thinks it is his right to take tips. And if you don't give, he becomes aggressive. Women are worse. They are criminals if you put them in high position. I have seen too much.

I am not talking about nutrient soil test which is more common. I am not asking you to check NPK in your soil, or PH. PH can be done with meters used by fish breeders. What I am asking you do is exactly what you do when you visit your doctor. That is culturing of serum, stool, urine, saliva, or any other fluid. Again, doctors can ask micro biologists to take out tissues from your body, and check for cancer cells, lumps, or infection. This is exactly what I am looking for.

Now, Agric is an extreme wide area. And combined in different specializations. There are agricultural micro biologists. Biology is the study of life of animal (human included) and plants. While micro is the study of tiny Microorganisms relation to living things.

If you go to the doctor, and he suspects typhoid, he knows what he is looking for. He tells you which test to do..If you have urinary infection symtoms, he will likely ask you to submit fluid from your private private so that it can be incubated for 24 to 48 hours with special nutrients to create rapid development and multiplication of the bacteria, fungi, or virus there. Different infections have got different nutrients that will make them grow. So, it depents on what the doctor is looking for. And he writes it on the paper you submit to medical laboratories. And then, they check the kind of growth. They also move futher to test different antibiotics sensitivity. Meaning, the one that can kill whatever they see. I want you to be like doctors. You are the doctor of the soil in your farm.

In the US it is more advanced. Christ! There are tests for herbal sensitivity. Doctors hate the technology, but the herbal guys forced it, and pulled strings in the senate to make it happen. Still not popular and most labs doing it always do antibiotics with it. So, it make it extremely expensive. It will get better. That nation is God's own real country. Honestly, I understand why doctors are leaving Nigeria. Nigeria is a train killer. The braina are here, but there are frustrations especially from useless, unintelligent, greedy, lazy people who are always competing unnecessarily. And you just look at yourself why you are swimming in the same pool with sick fishes before you get infected. There is no joy compared to working in an environment things work. Not here on Nigeria. Anyone who says Nigeria will get better in 20 years is not being realistic with what is still happening. We are still dropping instead of improving. And the main area is corruption. And it seems strategic war against corruption in a coded and covered approach is needed. Believe me, the first step is to pump money into police, inmigration, and custom. That is the first work. You need to first guard all your entrances and exits. And I strongly believe all police, immigration, and custom workers should be retired. From head to the toe. 100% sack. And bring in new breeds. Just use that year to absorb all the graduates from all universities, polytechnics, like even up to 5 years old graduants. And give cutlasses and hoes to all these ones collecting believe here and there. It is a bloody stupid mistake to make assistant IG the new IG. A beg retire all of them down (if military, retire from generals to Lt. Col, and leave on Majors and below). Then, move a major guy as the chief of staff and army boss. Never give rapid promotion. So that before that man even grow to Lt. Col, he gat to prove his worth. So, when I saw Buhari's appointments, I know he was dead on arrival. Was even thinking baba was using 6 months to prepare good list, until I saw Fayemi in mines and Steel. And I was shocked. No passion for the job. The guy was still eyeing the top seat in Ekiti. And that was what he did. I looked at the Communication mister too, that one fighting openly for Oyo's seat. Are politicians the right kind of people for ministerial job? What is Amaechi doing in that department? See them. They had to chase away Mrs Kemi Adeosun cos she was not being a politician. Even Mrs Okonjo saw hell in their hands. What are policing doing as Minsters? I cannot understand at all. Naija never serious. I still say it daily, Jonathan is more strategic, though, he may not be a displinarian like Buhari. Just look at his Agric Minister. That guy has no single political ambition. Akinwunmi Adesina is a don. The only appointment Ogbeh will ever get on his life again is political. Someone who has been in government since when he was in his 20s, and he does not see that he needs retirement soon. Na those kind people Buhari pack together to lead us. Dead on arrival. If not for his vice president, honestly, this government would have been a disaster. I know exactly what I am saying. So, Nigeria is dead. You better start thinking of being a lone ranger. If everyone is hungry in Nigeria, I will prosper like Isaac in a land ravaged with farmine.

So, my brother, it depends on the plants you want to cultivate. So, you ask the agricultural micro biologists to look for soil diseases that can kill your proposed crop. I am not asking you to do NPK because there are online kits for that which I know are unnecessary. The way I ask you to do basal preparation is solid that even you have dead sand in your farm, you have enriched the soil using my method. Soil tests for nutrients are meant for commercial farming with planters that cannot dig holes and place fertilizers in strategic locations like under the root. But Americans are beginning to see the benefits of strategic placement of fertilizers that we use in Africa instead of their usual broadcasting method. They are making planters with fertilizer applicators.

Most local laboratories for human medical are not okay. Recently there are excellent ones, but still they take out some samples abroad. If you want affordable tests, MeCure is good, and in Abuja and Lagos. There is Foremost too in Ogunlana Drive, Surulere. And there are few places recommended for CT scan.

The human tissue tests and culturing for infection are developed, but only PhD holders and researchers that I know do it for crops. The likes of IITA, NIHORT, Cocoa and Palm institutes, Tubers and roots institutes They all have tissue culture department. And this laboratory is exactly what I set up too for culturing and checking different microorganisms.

I do virus indexing for diseases too so as to make virus free seedlings. When dem no dey give me accurate results, I gat to start doing it. And I had spent millions so far in achieving my aim. Brother or Sister, ask most hustlers here to do pilot, it is a big problem.Oh! Come together to test this, that and that. No way. What you all want is "will I make profit?". If there is loss, the consultant cheats you. But you were the one adamant and reluctant not to do soil test. You are the one who refused to buy the right hp pump rating. He tells you to buy 2hp or more, you get to market and boys who want to sell tell you half horse power is ok cos that's the fast selling pump rating, and it's what he's got which is what most residential homes use. But cant you do deep search? I cannot buy anything for anyone again, except I am close to the person. If issues arises with custom, or whatever, you will not have rest of mind. Person that was begging you to even assist turns to a computer mouthed human. And they are fond of saying "Do you know who I am?" ....."Who you be? Who exactly are you? You are a dumb skull". And you start thinking the consultant is making you spend high. You are a fool. See, I can never consult for any individual. Never! I will rather give you free information, tell you all you need to do freely. But for me to come to your farm, my level don pass that by God's grace. And you cannot pay me. Maybe if a "think tank team" is being set up by a state or federal govt, I can join. Even, let Dangote promise me millions monthly salary to be his permanent staff, never! I know my worth. If he cannot agree on contract that I have liberty to roam around and not 8am to 4pm daily job, he should better focus on his cement production and leave me out of it. I will do my work deligently.

Why am I saying these? Many of those labs use expired substances, and they allow contamination due to negligence job because there is no proper check..l Nigeria is rotten beyond human though. Go and watchnthe series The Mechanism . I finished watching season 2 last week. As bad as Brasil is portrayed in the series, that country still has micro infection of corruption. Naija has Mega exponentially raised to infinity issues with corruption. Just look.at Brasil today. Chai! Brasil, Malaysia, and Nigeria are the 3 countries the whole world pointed to in the 70s to early 80s as countries that will join super power. Nigeria is the most useless out of these 3. Even South Africans are treated better than us. I remember a story one of my siblings told me. This man was just shouting at the port of entry. And by the time he moved closer, he realised he was a South African. The guy got mad cos the officer was asking too much questions. And he said, he's no more entering the US, but returning to his country. Hahaha! My informants said, come see begging. They begged him to enter. You as a Naija man, you will even be prostrating for them. They call you names, humiliate you, yet you no think at all. As soon as you enter, you even kneel down, speaking in tongues for safe passage. What a failed nation. But it's not over. It can be better.

It is when those researchers and professors have serious investigations to carry out they personally order for new laboratory supplies, and personally supervise the laboratory so called negligent experts. But I don't have such power. So, I set up my own tissue culture laboratory in one room in my home. No one enters except me. I mean no one. After spending money, long hours of studying materials (I pity those who use the phrase internet farmers cos they are dumb), travelling to the forest, you want me to just teach you freely. Madness is in your blood, honestly. And uou are pricing me low, you dey craze. Will rather dash you the info freely so you work it out yourself. lol

Ordinary buy good net for greenhouse, they will say no. But just yesterday I was chatting with a man who had a brilliant idea. I am going to test that idea. Kinda cheap way of getting net. I love people who can think deeply, Improvise excellently, and carry out instructions almost perfectly.

Do you have the idea of how many failed pilots I have had? You want to know how many losses made? But if you mistakenly take cash from investors, hahahaha. You are dead. I have done it too. Great mistake. I am still trying to pay some. They can come here to rubbish you. Chai! And I'm sorry, this nairaland is not good in dispute resolution. The mods are not helpful at all, or let me just say, they don't know what to do. Period! Many times, CONSULTANTS are not 100% wrong. But it's your hard earned currency. Right? May God not make me earn hardly. I want easy earned money.

Personally, I don't know if we are born to waste money. With all I have written here, 99% still want to die on open field farming when you can spare yourself pains of loss by erecting greenhouses. Use whatever matetial you can use. One 300sqm nethouse is preferable to me than doing 2 acres open field vegetable. Of course cash crops, trees, and grains are different ball games. I do not want to die young if I dont have the right equipment for vegetable open field. Cutlasses and hoes? God forbids with the stage I am.

Improvise anyhow.. But if I see anyone who goes for quality, trust me, I will download all my head for the person freely. If you do not want to spend, why should I bother giving you what you don't need. I don't give what you just want to hear, but what you will do. So, I look for capable hands too. Buy nethouse, na wahala. buy correct seeds, na trouble. Get irrigation, complain don start. Then why are you in crop farming? Your madness never start ooo. You will be poor for life. Walahi. Lol.

I don't argue these days. Once I notice your level, I deal with you according to it. I have learned to flow along with anyone who is fetches water in clay pot and puts it on his/her head from 1km river for irrigation. Everything goes. Na you get your own wahala. You want to move from Lagos to Sambisarest to use hoses for irrigation, it is your business, and not mine. You Want To Suffer in the bush all in the name of real practical, be my guest.

You better find real cash and do a good soil test so you can find the right seedlings or fortifying method for your farm. (Brother, not you, just using you as secind person in my post). How do you farm just asking on nairaland which variety you should use? I don't get it. Is my soil the same as yours? Not funny ooo. If doctors practise trial and error with internet prescriptions on us we will all die. So, why do you think crop is different. Once they hear test is over N100 000, they run away, but want to spend 3 million to set up. Set up what exactly? Set up good stuff on deadly infected soil. You dey mad, honestly, and no one is there to tell you. And I will never say you are wrong. Just ok. And even pamper you well. If you return after 1 year crying like a baby, I will pet you like one too. You decide to try again using the method, I will still not say a word. Why? I tested Nigerians for over 4 years and I saw that 100% of them are waste of time. They kill their projects themselves. They are all looking for who to use. They start like they will work on farm, but stylishly turn you to laborer. lol. But as someone who does not want to fail, you just try to make it work out. People dey mad oooo. You will be on farm talking to boys, instructing then, that useless man will sit under shade relaxing. You dey mad seriously. I can never work with anyone again. Period! So, I am here to give free info. And that's final. If you like, abuse me that I am an internet farmer cos you have not seen the picture of my rough junky ploughed land, and you haven't seen me wearing a useless "bugi-bugi" shoe with dirty workers, you are doing yourself. To even mulch 1 plot hard for aspiring farmers. But not that they cannot do it, they just do not want to in the name of keeping the budget low. You are mad if you have the means but choose not to. No way you will do correct soil test, buy fortified seedlings from an expert if you cannot make them yourself based on the test result, and follow instructions, and you fail. Why? Only external factors can make you fail. Only.

I laugh with all the so called buy plantain seedlings, buy that seedling....hahaha. You dey buy diseases. Plantain and bananas are worse. You better go for micro propagated seedlings. I mean real tissue culture, and not even macro.

Failure due to external factors can be corrected. There are always risk management strategies for external reasons. Like not expanding fast in SW just to study land grabbers, securing 100 ha with a few tips and buy just 3 ha if you feel like at the initial stage, leasing instead of buying for the first 3 years if doing veggie, etc. But if you are the problem of your farm, Nothing I can do to help you. The worst enemy anyone can have is himself or herself.

Funny I talk like this. Seriously, I meet people who are ready to spend even up to 50 million as start up. And you might think I encourage them. First, I listen to them, and pick points. I think I gave just 7% of this group the go ahead to spend. I drastically cut down the expenses of the rest which is around 93%. And I gave one man a 5-years plan last week. I noticed he was a bit reluctant. But when I finished my analysis, he was so happy. I may not even know A to Z of what you want to do, but just make me understand you. And I do animals too. Just that I know there is less profit there. Just only with mixed farming. Don't think I am just all about crop. Money no dey poultry. lol. Where is the money? Chicken change? lol. Na real chicken change. It's why Buhari was just ok with his cattles before he became the president. Check out palms owners like palm oil, coconut, dates, etc...They are rich. You want easy income, just install 10 greenhouses (might cost over 25 million naira which is the same you want to use on 100 ha) on just max of 1 acre and see you make times 40 of that man who is doing open field. But many fail in greenhouses Yes they do cos they did it wrongly. Go copy failures cos they are on low budget. No problem. Or go to the failed glorious companies in Nigeria. It is like it is time I start a seed selling company. Chai! That business looks sweet. lol.


Hope I have been able to answer your question.

pipi84:


The belt alpha seeds looks like the skin is rough. If NO, where can I get the seeds and can it planted in Open field with regards to it no being pollinated by another cucumber. Thanks

Skin is rough, very light skin, extremely sweet (brix level is extremely high), huge yield, tolerant to extreme heat, and majorly sold to malls and grocery stores. Open market will not accept it cos it spoils easily in the sun. We like bad things in Naija. Those hard skinned cukes are sold cos they favor traders and retailers. Dem no send you the consumer. If you want the best cukes, go for light skin and return to say I am a liar. Cu999 is one one the most tasteless cucumber I have ever eaten. Eat that stuff? Never again. lol. I will never allow it grow big if I want to eat it. In fact, I cannot. With those hard seeds inside. Not me. May be you.

The seeds are expensive too. Can you buy 1 seed for N20 to around N90? If you can, I will give you contacts.

Of course you can cultivate it outside. I said new varieties can tolerate up to 40C. You think say na joke? Not all. Some are for extremely cold like during winter. We do not have winter here. This technology is from Israel for extreme harsh weather areas. And the yield is crazily high.

But the market here is so limited. You can only do max of 1,000 plant to start with to test the market if you.can hustle it out. It can produce for 6 months if under greenhouse, but will die in 2 months outside. I have removed 65 from a variety over 2.5 months. I was leaving the apartment so I removed the plant, else, it was still rocking. what do you expect when you have 3 to 4 cukes per node, and no pollination, with hydroponics, hahahha. I better do just 1/8 plot than set up 15 useless plots far away in the bush.

Thanks for the comments. I learned about the staking from one of my boss here on nairaland #hybridveggies# and about the irrigation, I employed those Egede guy in the village to wet it for, luckily rain started toward the end of May. Please sir I want to know more about the horizontal staking, I want to know if it is better than the vertical staking I am using. Also, I want to know which cultivar tomato is the best for open field with high yield . I can not afford net house for now. I am very sorry for replying late. Thanks

Adeoye007:
Thanks for the comments. I learned about the staking from one of my boss here on nairaland #hybridveggies# and about the irrigation, I employed those Egede guy in the village to wet it for, luckily rain started toward the end of May. Please sir I want to know more about the horizontal staking, I want to know if it is better than the vertical staking I am using. Also, I want to know which cultivar tomato is the best for open field with high yield . I can not afford net house for now. I am very sorry for replying late. Thanks

I congratulate you for having faith in yourself, and for the ability to follow instructions without insisting the instructor should follow you.

Your staking method is the best, but more expensive and tedious. If you can do that easily, hmmmm....Bless you sir. This staking is why the varieties of tomatoes one can do is limited. Ha! You have varieties you can test which you can decide which to do.

The next step is looking at yourself if you want to learn pruning well, and do it excellently. Pruning is mental work. The way you prune cultivars differ. One will give you the basis, and if you find someone who is good, he will guide you on pruning from time to time based on the flowering pattern, the size of fruits, what your market demands, etc. And then, you will get the concept of pruning. It took me 3 years of studying different varieties to understand pruning for high yield (no one was there to guide me, man really digged deep). What I give people is pruning to avoid infection. Why? They are all not able to meet up with high yield pruning cos they expanded too much, or they cannot control workers, or they choose wrong varieties.

You have crossed the first stage by doing staking I recommend for small scale farmers. The next stage is learning pruning for high yield. If you learn that, and you get it right, you will automatically start spending less money on ploughing and not making beds every 4 months. You will see the reason why you need to buy mulch. No one will tell you. And you will buy quality mulch that will last even 5 years on the field. No one will tell you. But seed companies want you to come every 3 to 4 months and buy hybrids. More cash for them. If you then learn some top Open pollinated, hmmmm...Forget it, You will never buy seeds again. And you will start pitying yourself how you have wasted cash. I think I need to start seed breeding program to sell seeds. lol.

My brother, if you then move a step further to get advance techniques, you will want to put shelter over your crops so they last 1 full year with serious harvest. Not necessarily greenhouse, but just to let water not touch them too much.

If you take marketing serious, and you start spotting opportunities of supplying malls, and offer sales per kg, no one will teach you before you import galvanised nethouses with the best materials. Grow in stages. Make sure you cover operational cost everytime with some profit. I believe in starting small on a farm close by. Continue making profit to run your farm. Move to a larger farm later, but use small area to cultivate the likes of cucumber, radish, lettuce, watermelon, okra, (fast paced crops with less troubles, other crops you have mastered that there is market around you) to stabilize yourself at the initial stage. You may get 10 acres and use just only a plot at first. But doing grains and tubers are different ball games. You need a tractor to bombard the land from start, and do soil nutrient test for strategic locations after clear large area.

If you can prune well, believe me, you have the stamina to go for seed breeding production. And you can make your own hybrids. That is what I called total freedom from seeds compnaies. I don't buy hybrids these days for myself, I buy more of breeding lines. When they tell you 10 seeds cost $200 you understand what I meant, plus getting import license for just 10 seeds ...hahaha. And then you are giving the license to multiply on your own. The end justifies the means. We don't need this detailed way to operate, but Nigeria is a crazy place you just need to know more..Same goes for all other professions. It's why they always say, the best Nigerian experts are bad as.ses. Yes, cos their brain work like machine. When you compete with people in developed places with this hard condition, you become so good. You may not be the best in high school or in the university, but when passion pushes you to cross over, lol....you will be called a genius. But deep inside, you are not born a genius, you are just a non yielding man to failure. You are like Ronaldo who is a die hard on the football pitch. I believe Jay Jay could have surpassed all these people, but he was limited. He was gifted like Messi too. The only savior for Messi is that he has a Ronaldo who is pushing him. But it was that Messi that made the environment for Ronaldo not comfortable at first. Ronaldo was like....ha..."I got the best player award before this guy, how come he has dominated me for 3 years consecutively". My guy entered real training. Team sessions become pre trainings for him. You visit him at home, he feeds you, talks with, and finally he throws a ball at you to start playing with him. His Madrid mates said never try visiting him after team training, cos he will still throw balls at you. Lol..He went to Italy, saw how rough these defenders are, that can end the career of good footballers, my guy entered endurance training. Every morning started run up hill, down hill, in desert, without taking water. When I watched his video how his son followed him on such endurance training, I shouted. The kid had to back out, and Ronaldo told the security to pick him up while he continued with his body guards. Compare him with Neymar. Hahaha. As gifted as that guy his, injury is killing him. He better get off pitch and train his legs again to overcome those injuries. He should try talk to Holland that lost two of their players to bad injuries just when the world thought Holland had arrived. I am talking of Gullit and Barstin. Ha! Bad as.s players. Knee injury killed Gullit at his prime. Messi had his story by overcoming poor development in his teen age. Messi is not all about gift. The kind endurance training and food he ate when he was a teen helped him. People say Messi is only gifted, you don't know him. Check his story how his father spent $1,000 or so for good 2 years every month for his fitness program before Barca picked him up and continued. They say Messi should leave Barca. Funny people. Barca made him. Without Barca, there will be no Messi. Messi that was so small that he could be pushed away easily. It's why he is short. He could have been taller. But that man is strong. Rohaldinho saw him the first time, and laughed who is this tiny boy. But the youth team of Barca insisted he trained with team A. They were all laughing. At last Rohaldinho said, come on kid. When they saw skills, they bowed. From that day, Rohaldinho picked interest in him. Rohaldinho made Messi. But guess what? Jay Jay made Rohaldinho in PSG. So, can you see where I am going? And Ronaldo said, I watched so many of Jay Jay videos, practised many of his tricks.

But can I say Jay Jay is not tough? Hmmm. Naija na destiny killer. I'm sure he could not get the chance when he was young. It was just luck he got a German visa and visited Emma his bro in his club. And that was how Jay Jay too played with the team of his bro, and come see skills. But I guess "uncle was claiming young man". lol. And it made him slow on pitch later. He had to perfect long balls distribution to made up for running too much, just like Oliseh 's style. And that brought out the freekick expert in Jay Jay. He used to run and dribble anyone when he was young. Can't you see he stopped running too much later? E easy? So, at that age still bouncing like that. If I mention Taribo West, you know what is called being a die hard, and not known to give up easily. Taribo! Then talk of Ben Iroha! you don die if you jam him. That was an attacker converted to a defender. And even at Jay Jay's age, when he played that recent friendly match, and Eto'o had to call the audience to ask Jay Jay to leave pitch. Ha! Skills dey. Tough boys dey. I think Jay Jay was unlucky with his start, and that affected him. Can continue. Talk about Samuel Okwaraji, Sunday Oliseh and make comparison with Kanu, The bull omokachi, and the greatest Yekini. But let me stop here. A bit about Kanu. E easy to overcome heart problem? When I heard he has done more surgeries, I was shocked. Just simply learned to keep his private life, not like when he was still small that they popularized his first surgery. E easy?

Back to our discussion, this cultivar you are managing does not need staking mere seeing the picture if you are in a dry environment. But people just cut short sticks instead of longer poles as supports in climate like ours. Easier, cheaper, and more convenient. I can explain better on phone, or via chatting, or send you links of videos of good horizontal staking.

Pistotita:


I can write Harry Porter 1, 2, 3, 4.....on this issue. lol.

Agricultural departments always handle such tests. There are many soil tests. Tests done before digging boreholes, Construction of building and bridges, etc. These are civil engineering tests. There are also petroleum engineering soil tests which mainly is for exploration by drilling method. Even other mining resources areas like gold, precious stones, tantililum, clay, gravels, sand, etc (there are over 25 minerals we can mine in Nigeria) have their own soil tests.

The one I am talking about is Agricultural soil test. Mind you there are many soil tests in Agric. Nigeria is not just serious. We suppose to lead Africa in Agric because with what I have seen, there are geniuses here. Silent researchers making grounds. One secret I want you to know is that many seed companies need contacts with Nigeria, but are frustrated with corrupt government officials, custom challenges, and I am sorry to say no one can ever try start business easily during Buhari's time. He is known to be a creator of extremely unfriendly business operating environment in the name of fighting corruption. But let's come to think of it. Can the environment be nice when corruption is deep in the blood of Nigerians? A government official thinks it is his right to take tips. And if you don't give, he becomes aggressive. Women are worse. They are criminals if you put them in high position. I have seen too much.

I am not talking about nutrient soil test which is more common. I am not asking you to check NPK in your soil, or PH. PH can be done with meters used by fish breeders. What I am asking you do is exactly what you do when you visit your doctor. That is culturing of serum, stool, urine, saliva, or any other fluid. Again, doctors can ask micro biologists to take out tissues from your body, and check for cancer cells, lumps, or infection. This is exactly what I am looking for.

Now, Agric is an extreme wide area. And combined in different specializations. There are agricultural micro biologists. Biology is the study of life of animal (human included) and plants. While micro is the study of tiny Microorganisms relation to living things.

If you go to the doctor, and he suspects typhoid, he knows what he is looking for. He tells you which test to do..If you have urinary infection symtoms, he will likely ask you to submit fluid from your private private so that it can be incubated for 24 to 48 hours with special nutrients to create rapid development and multiplication of the bacteria, fungi, or virus there. Different infections have got different nutrients that will make them grow. So, it depents on what the doctor is looking for. And he writes it on the paper you submit to medical laboratories. And then, they check the kind of growth. They also move futher to test different antibiotics sensitivity. Meaning, the one that can kill whatever they see. I want you to be like doctors. You are the doctor of the soil in your farm.

In the US it is more advanced. Christ! There are tests for herbal sensitivity. Doctors hate the technology, but the herbal guys forced it, and pulled strings in the senate to make it happen. Still not popular and most labs doing it always do antibiotics with it. So, it make it extremely expensive. It will get better. That nation is God's own real country. Honestly, I understand why doctors are leaving Nigeria. Nigeria is a train killer. The braina are here, but there are frustrations especially from useless, unintelligent, greedy, lazy people who are always competing unnecessarily. And you just look at yourself why you are swimming in the same pool with sick fishes before you get infected. There is no joy compared to working in an environment things work. Not here on Nigeria. Anyone who says Nigeria will get better in 20 years is not being realistic with what is still happening. We are still dropping instead of improving. And the main area is corruption. And it seems strategic war against corruption in a coded and covered approach is needed. Believe me, the first step is to pump money into police, inmigration, and custom. That is the first work. You need to first guard all your entrances and exits. And I strongly believe all police, immigration, and custom workers should be retired. From head to the toe. 100% sack. And bring in new breeds. Just use that year to absorb all the graduates from all universities, polytechnics, like even up to 5 years old graduants. And give cutlasses and hoes to all these ones collecting believe here and there. It is a bloody stupid mistake to make assistant IG the new IG. A beg retire all of them down (if military, retire from generals to Lt. Col, and leave on Majors and below). Then, move a major guy as the chief of staff and army boss. Never give rapid promotion. So that before that man even grow to Lt. Col, he gat to prove his worth. So, when I saw Buhari's appointments, I know he was dead on arrival. Was even thinking baba was using 6 months to prepare good list, until I saw Fayemi in mines and Steel. And I was shocked. No passion for the job. The guy was still eyeing the top seat in Ekiti. And that was what he did. I looked at the Communication mister too, that one fighting openly for Oyo's seat. Are politicians the right kind of people for ministerial job? What is Amaechi doing in that department? See them. They had to chase away Mrs Kemi Adeosun cos she was not being a politician. Even Mrs Okonjo saw hell in their hands. What are policing doing as Minsters? I cannot understand at all. Naija never serious. I still say it daily, Jonathan is more strategic, though, he may not be a displinarian like Buhari. Just look at his Agric Minister. That guy has no single political ambition. Akinwunmi Adesina is a don. The only appointment Ogbeh will ever get on his life again is political. Someone who has been in government since when he was in his 20s, and he does not see that he needs retirement soon. Na those kind people Buhari pack together to lead us. Dead on arrival. If not for his vice president, honestly, this government would have been a disaster. I know exactly what I am saying. So, Nigeria is dead. You better start thinking of being a lone ranger. If everyone is hungry in Nigeria, I will prosper like Isaac in a land ravaged with farmine.

So, my brother, it depends on the plants you want to cultivate. So, you ask the agricultural micro biologists to look for soil diseases that can kill your proposed crop. I am not asking you to do NPK because there are online kits for that which I know are unnecessary. The way I ask you to do basal preparation is solid that even you have dead sand in your farm, you have enriched the soil using my method. Soil tests for nutrients are meant for commercial farming with planters that cannot dig holes and place fertilizers in strategic locations like under the root. But Americans are beginning to see the benefits of strategic placement of fertilizers that we use in Africa instead of their usual broadcasting method. They are making planters with fertilizer applicators.

Most local laboratories for human medical are not okay. Recently there are excellent ones, but still they take out some samples abroad. If you want affordable tests, MeCure is good, and in Abuja and Lagos. There is Foremost too in Ogunlana Drive, Surulere. And there are few places recommended for CT scan.

The human tissue tests and culturing for infection are developed, but only PhD holders and researchers that I know do it for crops. The likes of IITA, NIHORT, Cocoa and Palm institutes, Tubers and roots institutes They all have tissue culture department. And this laboratory is exactly what I set up too for culturing and checking different microorganisms.

I do virus indexing for diseases too so as to make virus free seedlings. When dem no dey give me accurate results, I gat to start doing it. And I had spent millions so far in achieving my aim. Brother or Sister, ask most hustlers here to do pilot, it is a big problem.Oh! Come together to test this, that and that. No way. What you all want is "will I make profit?". If there is loss, the consultant cheats you. But you were the one adamant and reluctant not to do soil test. You are the one who refused to buy the right hp pump rating. He tells you to buy 2hp or more, you get to market and boys who want to sell tell you half horse power is ok cos that's the fast selling pump rating, and it's what he's got which is what most residential homes use. But cant you do deep search? I cannot buy anything for anyone again, except I am close to the person. If issues arises with custom, or whatever, you will not have rest of mind. Person that was begging you to even assist turns to a computer mouthed human. And they are fond of saying "Do you know who I am?" ....."Who you be? Who exactly are you? You are a dumb skull". And you start thinking the consultant is making you spend high. You are a fool. See, I can never consult for any individual. Never! I will rather give you free information, tell you all you need to do freely. But for me to come to your farm, my level don pass that by God's grace. And you cannot pay me. Maybe if a "think tank team" is being set up by a state or federal govt, I can join. Even, let Dangote promise me millions monthly salary to be his permanent staff, never! I know my worth. If he cannot agree on contract that I have liberty to roam around and not 8am to 4pm daily job, he should better focus on his cement production and leave me out of it. I will do my work deligently.

Why am I saying these? Many of those labs use expired substances, and they allow contamination due to negligence job because there is no proper check..l Nigeria is rotten beyond human though. Go and watchnthe series The Mechanism . I finished watching season 2 last week. As bad as Brasil is portrayed in the series, that country still has micro infection of corruption. Naija has Mega exponentially raised to infinity issues with corruption. Just look.at Brasil today. Chai! Brasil, Malaysia, and Nigeria are the 3 countries the whole world pointed to in the 70s to early 80s as countries that will join super power. Nigeria is the most useless out of these 3. Even South Africans are treated better than us. I remember a story one of my siblings told me. This man was just shouting at the port of entry. And by the time he moved closer, he realised he was a South African. The guy got mad cos the officer was asking too much questions. And he said, he's no more entering the US, but returning to his country. Hahaha! My informants said, come see begging. They begged him to enter. You as a Naija man, you will even be prostrating for them. They call you names, humiliate you, yet you no think at all. As soon as you enter, you even kneel down, speaking in tongues for safe passage. What a failed nation. But it's not over. It can be better.

It is when those researchers and professors have serious investigations to carry out they personally order for new laboratory supplies, and personally supervise the laboratory so called negligent experts. But I don't have such power. So, I set up my own tissue culture laboratory in one room in my home. No one enters except me. I mean no one. After spending money, long hours of studying materials (I pity those who use the phrase internet farmers cos they are dumb), travelling to the forest, you want me to just teach you freely. Madness is in your blood, honestly. And uou are pricing me low, you dey craze. Will rather dash you the info freely so you work it out yourself. lol

Ordinary buy good net for greenhouse, they will say no. But just yesterday I was chatting with a man who had a brilliant idea. I am going to test that idea. Kinda cheap way of getting net. I love people who can think deeply, Improvise excellently, and carry out instructions almost perfectly.

Do you have the idea of how many failed pilots I have had? You want to know how many losses made? But if you mistakenly take cash from investors, hahahaha. You are dead. I have done it too. Great mistake. I am still trying to pay some. They can come here to rubbish you. Chai! And I'm sorry, this nairaland is not good in dispute resolution. The mods are not helpful at all, or let me just say, they don't know what to do. Period! Many times, CONSULTANTS are not 100% wrong. But it's your hard earned currency. Right? May God not make me earn hardly. I want easy earned money.

Personally, I don't know if we are born to waste money. With all I have written here, 99% still want to die on open field farming when you can spare yourself pains of loss by erecting greenhouses. Use whatever matetial you can use. One 300sqm nethouse is preferable to me than doing 2 acres open field vegetable. Of course cash crops, trees, and grains are different ball games. I do not want to die young if I dont have the right equipment for vegetable open field. Cutlasses and hoes? God forbids with the stage I am.

Improvise anyhow.. But if I see anyone who goes for quality, trust me, I will download all my head for the person freely. If you do not want to spend, why should I bother giving you what you don't need. I don't give what you just want to hear, but what you will do. So, I look for capable hands too. Buy nethouse, na wahala. buy correct seeds, na trouble. Get irrigation, complain don start. Then why are you in crop farming? Your madness never start ooo. You will be poor for life. Walahi. Lol.

I don't argue these days. Once I notice your level, I deal with you according to it. I have learned to flow along with anyone who is fetches water in clay pot and puts it on his/her head from 1km river for irrigation. Everything goes. Na you get your own wahala. You want to move from Lagos to Sambisarest to use hoses for irrigation, it is your business, and not mine. You Want To Suffer in the bush all in the name of real practical, be my guest.

You better find real cash and do a good soil test so you can find the right seedlings or fortifying method for your farm. (Brother, not you, just using you as secind person in my post). How do you farm just asking on nairaland which variety you should use? I don't get it. Is my soil the same as yours? Not funny ooo. If doctors practise trial and error with internet prescriptions on us we will all die. So, why do you think crop is different. Once they hear test is over N100 000, they run away, but want to spend 3 million to set up. Set up what exactly? Set up good stuff on deadly infected soil. You dey mad, honestly, and no one is there to tell you. And I will never say you are wrong. Just ok. And even pamper you well. If you return after 1 year crying like a baby, I will pet you like one too. You decide to try again using the method, I will still not say a word. Why? I tested Nigerians for over 4 years and I saw that 100% of them are waste of time. They kill their projects themselves. They are all looking for who to use. They start like they will work on farm, but stylishly turn you to laborer. lol. But as someone who does not want to fail, you just try to make it work out. People dey mad oooo. You will be on farm talking to boys, instructing then, that useless man will sit under shade relaxing. You dey mad seriously. I can never work with anyone again. Period! So, I am here to give free info. And that's final. If you like, abuse me that I am an internet farmer cos you have not seen the picture of my rough junky ploughed land, and you haven't seen me wearing a useless "bugi-bugi" shoe with dirty workers, you are doing yourself. To even mulch 1 plot hard for aspiring farmers. But not that they cannot do it, they just do not want to in the name of keeping the budget low. You are mad if you have the means but choose not to. No way you will do correct soil test, buy fortified seedlings from an expert if you cannot make them yourself based on the test result, and follow instructions, and you fail. Why? Only external factors can make you fail. Only.

I laugh with all the so called buy plantain seedlings, buy that seedling....hahaha. You dey buy diseases. Plantain and bananas are worse. You better go for micro propagated seedlings. I mean real tissue culture, and not even macro.

Failure due to external factors can be corrected. There are always risk management strategies for external reasons. Like not expanding fast in SW just to study land grabbers, securing 100 ha with a few tips and buy just 3 ha if you feel like at the initial stage, leasing instead of buying for the first 3 years if doing veggie, etc. But if you are the problem of your farm, Nothing I can do to help you. The worst enemy anyone can have is himself or herself.

Funny I talk like this. Seriously, I meet people who are ready to spend even up to 50 million as start up. And you might think I encourage them. First, I listen to them, and pick points. I think I gave just 7% of this group the go ahead to spend. I drastically cut down the expenses of the rest which is around 93%. And I gave one man a 5-years plan last week. I noticed he was a bit reluctant. But when I finished my analysis, he was so happy. I may not even know A to Z of what you want to do, but just make me understand you. And I do animals too. Just that I know there is less profit there. Just only with mixed farming. Don't think I am just all about crop. Money no dey poultry. lol. Where is the money? Chicken change? lol. Na real chicken change. It's why Buhari was just ok with his cattles before he became the president. Check out palms owners like palm oil, coconut, dates, etc...They are rich. You want easy income, just install 10 greenhouses (might cost over 25 million naira which is the same you want to use on 100 ha) on just max of 1 acre and see you make times 40 of that man who is doing open field. But many fail in greenhouses Yes they do cos they did it wrongly. Go copy failures cos they are on low budget. No problem. Or go to the failed glorious companies in Nigeria. It is like it is time I start a seed selling company. Chai! That business looks sweet. lol.


Hope I have been able to answer your question.

Noted Apostle [/s] Paul Pistotita! Feeling ur epistles .

Special Points you should consider to be successful in Plum/Paste/Roma open field Tomato production
1. Plum (paste) is what open field markets accept here. Also called Roma, there are divers.
2. Plum tomato is for commercial farming. And most fruits are medium size fruits. However, I shoot high to get large size of fruits.
3. The compromise of having high resistant variety is having lower yield and smaller fruits. (it is why the likes of cultivars here have small fruits). This can also be used by poor African farmers so that they can also move ahead with cultivating plum tomato too (my thought, may not be the reality).
4. North America, Israel, and Holland focus more on combining 2 or more varieties. Therefore, yield is better than more than the Asian counterparts. But funny that they got the trick from Asia (Asians are masters), but Asia is killing Africa. You think Asian seeds are cheap? Nope. By the time you convert the cost of seeds Asians give you, it is the same cost to the western world. I buy regulated seeds used inside Asia, and not those moved to Africa.
5. Both Asian and Western producers focus more on commercial plum tomato farming. And commercial means it is for farmers using tractors, planters, etc. However, Asia developed programs for small farmers to use the same seeds traits but customized for Africa which I believe is more for commercial farming.
6. One characteristics is that plants population is extremely high. But they do not mind cos they use high tech. For example, tractors to plough 10 ha, planters to sow seeds in trays, automatic irrigation in nursery, transplanters driving tractors, mulch (optional), drip irrigation mostly, and some go on extreme high tech that they get cultivars that will produce 80% to 90% of yield at first harvest or second harvest. During the time yield is crazily high, they just use harvesters to move round the farm (mass harvestion without spending high on hand pickers) which is likely to crush everything. I love this strategy as long as withdrawal rules are observed. Those guys are top thinkers.
7. Fruits have low brix level. They care less about the taste. It is for processing and not fresh market. From my investigation I can say over 99.9% (my view) of Nigerians have not tasted good, sweet tomato, even plum or paste. If you do, you will never buy tomatoes even from Shoprite and Spar, not to talk of buying from open market. If not red, it is not stew or soup. lol
8. The Nigerian market too is all about the above kind of cultivars. Why? We don't eat fresh tomato. We blend and cook tomato into paste, and we add spices and flavors (the popular maggi cubes), just exactly the tomato paste method. How many eat raw sweet cherry and grape cultivars? How many eat Tomatillos? How many eat beefsteak in sand wiches. Lol. Most even use commercial tasteless Roma in making fruit salads and sandwiches. That is so poor. What? Tasteless Roma to make sandwich? If you taste Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Cherokee Chocolate, etc, you will never in your life eat commercial raw Roma (except new sets of high brix level Romas coming from Israel especially). Those tasteless, sour, bitter tomatoes, but sweetened with flavor, spices,and salt which are dangerous too if too much are in the body.
9. Traders and retailers force Nigeria into eating these kinds of cultivars. Why? Because these kinds have the best shipping tolerance, can endure sun, and they don't easily crack. Just exactly what the commercial producers do.
10. No one who cares about his health patronizes these sellers. Pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, deadly sprays, etc are in these kinds of tomatoes. Worst of all are canned and sachet tomato paste. But this is where the world is moving towards. Dangote has set one up too. I am not criticizing anyone, but just writing about the trend.

Farmers Market in the Western World
In those days, farmers market in the western countries used to have organic quality production. But these days, not so. Why? Farmers have been pushed away from selling in the markets, while hustlers and agents just exactly the way it is in Nigeria operate it. They force on the consumers what benefit them only. Lol. (Deep research I made to get these facts, and it shaped my style of production).

Market Growers in the western world are hustlers like Greenhouse owners in Nigeria
These are tough, never yielding to failure farmers who use quality cultivars (extremely expensive seeds, mostly heirloms) and sell in organic sections of grocery stores. Funny that commercial producers have entered the market too, and have pushed farmers away. However, any small grower who can install greenhouse always compete well producing organic products. These cultivars are long term kinds. They stay in the farm for 1 year with the help of excellent staking and pruning.

My new Style
1. I adopted qualities from commercial and market growers who supply organic products to grocery stores. I had to come up with combination of cultivars that have intermediate productivity term, and give extremely high yield. Note: Big fruits do not equate to high yield. There are many big fo.ols cultivars (brandywine is one, but the flavor and taste can never let those who have tasted it let it go. This has forced grower to improve its productivity to compete with hybrids).
2. For good health, I produce vegetables for my personal consumption. And I use long term cultivars. My garden, my stomach. lol
3. Vigor enhancement, brix increment, prevention of flower abortion, and managing diseases and blossom end are strategies I adopted to reduce plant population. The result is lower usage of fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, and other chemicals. And I spray more of organic nutrients on the leaves. Of course if open fied, and especially during dry season to rainy season periods, organic sprays only are not effective. But I still manage to reduce the usage.
4. While most farmers use 30cm emitters spacing with 2 rows on beds which creates extremely high population (for Christ sake, these cultivars are for commercial production), I always have 20 - 30% of such population. So, it gives me the opportunity to have excellent free air flow. Therefore, I don't do serious pruning too. I learned this trick while discussing with a friend. Why use 30cm emitters during rainy sesson? Why two rows on a bed that block free flow of air (only a side of the plants receives quality air? Just the exact reason most farmers cannot defeat mildew in cucumber). Very tiny path ways they use because the plants are low producing cultivars, and their only make up plan is high population method. Wrong approach! And if you use these commercial cultivars, yield will be extremely low too with low density population (low yield per plant). I asked 6 farmers yesterday, and they all managed to pull average of 50 to 65 35kg-baskets yield on 1 acre. While most of these seeds promise around 48 tons per acre (not realistic except with densely population during dry season only using mulch, drip, tractor, powered knapsacks, and heavy chemical spraying), my friends here got just 1.7tons to 2.3 tons per acre. Of course during tomato glut, 50 baskets give around N550,000 sales. And they are happy and contended. Guess what? Asian seeds sellers are happier in Nigeria. And it's why they are pumping into Naija. If my friends eyes can be opened, and they understand their extremely poor performance, they will understand how commercial farms sell so cheap during dry season, and still breakeven with high profit. Very soon, I am stopping rainy sesson production to focus more on dry season commercial production (just want to raise some cash now to move in equipment, no pleading with investors again). Rainy season should be my rest period.

I work less, and spend less
Most African farmers use around 65 - 80% more plants on the field than me. Check figures under "Figures do not tell lies"[/b]

Do not trust my results, just follow my concepts, and go on pilots
I am not interested in any debate if high yield I claim here is possible, or not. Just go on pilots to perfect your style, and stop listening to seed sellers technicians. They are trained to tell you how to produce and return to them to buy more, and more seeds. Yeah! I am happy for you too cos you may make profit with their style. Good! But you may die at your prime age if you are not careful.

Farming without getting high blood pressure
Just imagine using seeds, and trying to go on super high density, even during wet season like commercial farms. You will die young. Mark my words. 10,000 plants on an acre. Say wetin? "You be tractor:? And you want to do even 10 ha with this method. "O boy, you are digging your 6-ft below gradually". Walahi! "SAY WETIN?"

I detected that African farmers go on even more dense population
This is what I called Seed sellers giving you The Undert.aker's (Mark William Calaway who is the most popular legend of Wrestlemania under the WWE brand) Leg Drop. [i]He who seeks to defeat The De.adman must dig his own grave out of precaution/preparation, but he’s likely to rest a little deeper than six feet after all 300 pounds of The Un.dertaker come crashing down on his sternum.

Figures do not tell lies
Beds: usually 80cm - 100cm wide, 30m length
Path way: 40cm - 50cm
Total beds on 1 acre: After removing 1m perimeter border, exactly 82 beds fit in.
Population per bed: 200 (drip: 30cm emitters, 2 rolls per bed, 30m beds)
Total population per acre: 16,400 plants per acre. "Wetin?" "You be tractor?"

Analysis
Commercial farmers: 10,000_per acre during dry season
Small Scale African Farmers: 16,400_per acre during wet season. (Add 20%_to it to cover seeds germination rate)

Not only you buy more seeds (more profits for seed sellers), you will spray more (more profits for chemicals sellers), and you will use more fertilizers, (in fact 60%_ more chemicals and fertilizers if you use powered sprayer used by commercial farm, but since it's manual knapsack everyone uses, it is over 200%_more chemicals). "Ha! Wetin? You wan kill us for Naija?"

Cancer is Real
The way Asian seeds sellers in Africa are training farmers here is really sad. They cannot try it in their country. To go on such high population, it must be under greenhouse with high quality nets. If you think I am telling lies, go on alibaba or aliexpress to confirm. If I am telling lies here, return and give it hard to me. It is bad, and not acceptable how these so called glorious giants in seed production are messing up Africa. Yet they claim they produce organic seeds, while Monsanto produces GMO. Chai! "Asians no send you oooo". Someone needs to send back to Asia, America, and Europe these companies. Or they must be checked. Then, they show you one useless ranking that one "SouthNorth" seed company is the top in the whole world? Who took the figures used? What criteria are used? Is the ranking organisation even recognised? On what basis? I think its time we start sending facts and figures out on how these seeds companies pretend like angels and give quality service to the North Americans and Europe, but are detroyers of Africa. I saw one ranked higher than BHN and Sakata in transparency and laughed so much. Who even came up with that 1m bed width, 50cm path way, 30cm emitters spacing, 2 rolls drip per bed? I mean who is that de.mon? Who exactly is that dev.il? The Asians evi.l plan for African small farmers. Period!
I am not saying the Asian companies do not have good products, all I am saying is that they give Africa cheap stuff that most farmers are looking for. Asians are like that in everything. Even their vehicles produced for Africa are terrible. You can try it. Just try negotiating with any Chinese seller online, or face to face, the first question asked is your location. And they give you exactly what they think you deserve. While they give the American and European buyers the highest quality but with premium price, they give Africa cheap and terrible products. But if you look deep, they make more profit selling cheap stuff, and it is even more expensive to buy those cheap stuff too. I don't argue, but if you cannot still see it, your arithmetical skill is extremely poor. How dear you say any of those Asian seeds makers is better than Hezara? Israel is more honest, trust worthy, more opened, etc. Have you even seen research papers from Asian made public? How dear you compare any of those Asian seed companies with Takii? Oh! How can you say any of them has better tomatoes than BHN? Thank God for America. God bless that nation. I heard Harvard even has a section that you can get papers translated. That is a nation. God bless the United States. Huawei tried that mess with the US, just look at the knock out Trump gave that company. lol. You dear not play pranks on the US as quality production is never compromised.

As for me and my household, henceforth we have
1. cut down drastically fresh food purchases from uncontrolled open markets.
2. started a garden to produce organically quality food. I wish to open a thread on gardening because this Agricultural section is not for it. I have posted about it previously. Mostly hustlers are here. The right sections are Food and Health. But if created there, I am sure the glorious, Almighty Supermods will definitely move it back here. So, I will just continue here. Feel free to contact me if your aim is to have various veggies in your garden produced 80-100% organically.
3. started per-boiling any grain bought for 15 minutes (Even imported are terrible, "Chinese boys no dey smile, esp with their plastic rice". And I pour away the water, then wash very well before I start proper cooking or boiling. Even with all kinds of meat (except I know the farmer is pure organic), and fish.
4. started eating more of bean cakes and steamed blended cowpeas or beans. Why? The outer skin which absorbs most of the chemicals are peeled off. And In fact, I remove the skin of all cowpeas just to get rid of the high pesticide content. Too damn much.
5. started producing my own lactose and gluten free milk, tofu, and cheese. (Still trying to work on getting the right procedure to re-populate our bacteria gut, and good flora washed away by all these deadly food and antibiotics, I don't believe in using probiotics. Just still skeptical about it. So, until then, let me continue my lactose and gluten free diary products)

If you like come and ask me again the solutions I have for not using chemicals since I am campaigning saint inorganic. Perhaps, you expect me to start spelling it out from A to Z like we are in kindergarten class (not campaigning against inorganic, just making the public know that inorganic producers do not follow the rules, and no one is checking them). If you like continue killing the consumers of your products with high pesticides, and claiming you must make profit. If you like read, digest, and apply my tips. The Unde.rtaker is nearby. Cancer is getting extremely high in Africa. My prayer is that after reading my articles, and you do not even want to care about taking positive steps in observing withdrawal rules thereby not poisoning the consumers of your products(not saying you stop inorganic, or start practising organic), may dev.il visit you with cancer. Amen!

Pistotita:
Special Points you should consider to be successful in Plum/Paste/Roma open field Tomato production
1. Plum (paste) is what open field markets accept here. Also called Roma, there are divers.
2. Plum tomato is for commercial farming. And most fruits are medium size fruits. However, I shoot high to get large size of fruits.
3. The compromise of having high resistant variety is having lower yield and smaller fruits. (it is why the likes of cultivars here have small fruits). This can also be used by poor African farmers so that they can also move ahead with cultivating plum tomato too (my thought, may not be the reality).
4. North America, Israel, and Holland focus more on combining 2 or more varieties. Therefore, yield is better than more than the Asian counterparts. But funny that they got the trick from Asia (Asians are masters), but Asia is killing Africa. You think Asian seeds are cheap? Nope. By the time you convert the cost of seeds Asians give you, it is the same cost to the western world. I buy regulated seeds used inside Asia, and not those moved to Africa.
5. Both Asian and Western producers focus more on commercial plum tomato farming. And commercial means it is for farmers using tractors, planters, etc. However, Asia developed programs for small farmers to use the same seeds traits but customized for Africa which I believe is more for commercial farming.
6. One characteristics is that plants population is extremely high. But they do not mind cos they use high tech. For example, tractors to plough 10 ha, planters to sow seeds in trays, automatic irrigation in nursery, transplanters driving tractors, mulch (optional), drip irrigation mostly, and some go on extreme high tech that they get cultivars that will produce 80% to 90% of yield at first harvest or second harvest. During the time yield is crazily high, they just use harvesters to move round the farm (mass harvestion without spending high on hand pickers) which is likely to crush everything. I love this strategy as long as withdrawal rules are observed. Those guys are top thinkers.
7. Fruits have low brix level. They care less about the taste. It is for processing and not fresh market. From my investigation I can say over 99.9% (my view) of Nigerians have not tasted good, sweet tomato, even plum or paste. If you do, you will never buy tomatoes even from Shoprite and Spar, not to talk of buying from open market. If not red, it is not stew or soup. lol
8. The Nigerian market too is all about the above kind of cultivars. Why? We don't eat fresh tomato. We blend and cook tomato into paste, and we add spices and flavors (the popular maggi cubes), just exactly the tomato paste method. How many eat raw sweet cherry and grape cultivars? How many eat Tomatillos? How many eat beefsteak in sand wiches. Lol. Most even use commercial tasteless Roma in making fruit salads and sandwiches. That is so poor. What? Tasteless Roma to make sandwich? If you taste Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Cherokee Chocolate, etc, you will never in your life eat commercial raw Roma (except new sets of high brix level Romas coming from Israel especially). Those tasteless, sour, bitter tomatoes, but sweetened with flavor, spices,and salt which are dangerous too if too much are in the body.
9. Traders and retailers force Nigeria into eating these kinds of cultivars. Why? Because these kinds have the best shipping tolerance, can endure sun, and they don't easily crack. Just exactly what the commercial producers do.
10. No one who cares about his health patronizes these sellers. Pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, deadly sprays, etc are in these kinds of tomatoes. Worst of all are canned and sachet tomato paste. But this is where the world is moving towards. Dangote has set one up too. I am not criticizing anyone, but just writing about the trend.

Farmers Market in the Western World
In those days, farmers market in the western countries used to have organic quality production. But these days, not so. Why? Farmers have been pushed away from selling in the markets, while hustlers and agents just exactly the way it is in Nigeria operate it. They force on the consumers what benefit them only. Lol. (Deep research I made to get these facts, and it shaped my style of production).

Market Growers in the western world are hustlers like Greenhouse owners in Nigeria
These are tough, never yielding to failure farmers who use quality cultivars (extremely expensive seeds, mostly heirloms) and sell in organic sections of grocery stores. Funny that commercial producers have entered the market too, and have pushed farmers away. However, any small grower who can install greenhouse always compete well producing organic products. These cultivars are long term kinds. They stay in the farm for 1 year with the help of excellent staking and pruning.

My new Style
1. I adopted qualities from commercial and market growers who supply organic products to grocery stores. I had to come up with combination of cultivars that have intermediate productivity term, and give extremely high yield. Note: Big fruits do not equate to high yield. There are many big fo.ols cultivars (brandywine is one, but the flavor and taste can never let those who have tasted it let it go. This has forced grower to improve its productivity to compete with hybrids).
2. For good health, I produce vegetables for my personal consumption. And I use long term cultivars. My garden, my stomach. lol
3. Vigor enhancement, brix increment, prevention of flower abortion, and managing diseases and blossom end are strategies I adopted to reduce plant population. The result is lower usage of fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, and other chemicals. And I spray more of organic nutrients on the leaves. Of course if open fied, and especially during dry season to rainy season periods, organic sprays only are not effective. But I still manage to reduce the usage.
4. While most farmers use 30cm emitters spacing with 2 rows on beds which creates extremely high population (for Christ sake, these cultivars are for commercial production), I always have 20 - 30% of such population. So, it gives me the opportunity to have excellent free air flow. Therefore, I don't do serious pruning too. I learned this trick while discussing with a friend. Why use 30cm emitters during rainy sesson? Why two rows on a bed that block free flow of air (only a side of the plants receives quality air? Just the exact reason most farmers cannot defeat mildew in cucumber). Very tiny path ways they use because the plants are low producing cultivars, and their only make up plan is high population method. Wrong approach! And if you use these commercial cultivars, yield will be extremely low too with low density population (low yield per plant). I asked 6 farmers yesterday, and they all managed to pull average of 50 to 65 35kg-baskets yield on 1 acre. While most of these seeds promise around 48 tons per acre (not realistic except with densely population during dry season only using mulch, drip, tractor, powered knapsacks, and heavy chemical spraying), my friends here got just 1.7tons to 2.3 tons per acre. Of course during tomato glut, 50 baskets give around N550,000 sales. And they are happy and contended. Guess what? Asian seeds sellers are happier in Nigeria. And it's why they are pumping into Naija. If my friends eyes can be opened, and they understand their extremely poor performance, they will understand how commercial farms sell so cheap during dry season, and still breakeven with high profit. Very soon, I am stopping rainy sesson production to focus more on dry season commercial production (just want to raise some cash now to move in equipment, no pleading with investors again). Rainy season should be my rest period.

I work less, and spend less
Most African farmers use around 65 - 80% more plants on the field than me. Check figures under "Figures do not tell lies"[/b]

Do not trust my results, just follow my concepts, and go on pilots
I am not interested in any debate if high yield I claim here is possible, or not. Just go on pilots to perfect your style, and stop listening to seed sellers technicians. They are trained to tell you how to produce and return to them to buy more, and more seeds. Yeah! I am happy for you too cos you may make profit with their style. Good! But you may die at your prime age if you are not careful.

Farming without getting high blood pressure
Just imagine using seeds, and trying to go on super high density, even during wet season like commercial farms. You will die young. Mark my words. 10,000 plants on an acre. Say wetin? "You be tractor:? And you want to do even 10 ha with this method. "O boy, you are digging your 6-ft below gradually". Walahi! "SAY WETIN?"

I detected that African farmers go on even more dense population
This is what I called Seed sellers giving you The Undert.aker's (Mark William Calaway who is the most popular legend of Wrestlemania under the WWE brand) Leg Drop. [i]He who seeks to defeat The De.adman must dig his own grave out of precaution/preparation, but he’s likely to rest a little deeper than six feet after all 300 pounds of The Un.dertaker come crashing down on his sternum.

Figures do not tell lies
Beds: usually 80cm - 100cm wide, 30m length
Path way: 40cm - 50cm
Total beds on 1 acre: After removing 1m perimeter border, exactly 82 beds fit in.
Population per bed: 200 (drip: 30cm emitters, 2 rolls per bed, 30m beds)
Total population per acre: 16,400 plants per acre. "Wetin?" "You be tractor?"

Analysis
Commercial farmers: 10,000_per acre during dry season
Small Scale African Farmers: 16,400_per acre during wet season. (Add 20%_to it to cover seeds germination rate)

Not only you buy more seeds (more profits for seed sellers), you will spray more (more profits for chemicals sellers), and you will use more fertilizers, (in fact 60%_ more chemicals and fertilizers if you use powered sprayer used by commercial farm, but since it's manual knapsack everyone uses, it is over 200%_more chemicals). "Ha! Wetin? You wan kill us for Naija?"

Cancer is Real
The way Asian seeds sellers in Africa are training farmers here is really sad. They cannot try it in their country. To go on such high population, it must be under greenhouse with high quality nets. If you think I am telling lies, go on alibaba or aliexpress to confirm. If I am telling lies here, return and give it hard to me. It is bad, and not acceptable how these so called glorious giants in seed production are messing up Africa. Yet they claim they produce organic seeds, while Monsanto produces GMO. Chai! "Asians no send you oooo". Someone needs to send back to Asia, America, and Europe these companies. Or they must be checked. Then, they show you one useless ranking that one "SouthNorth" seed company is the top in the whole world? Who took the figures used? What criteria are used? Is the ranking organisation even recognised? On what basis? I think its time we start sending facts and figures out on how these seeds companies pretend like angels and give quality service to the North Americans and Europe, but are detroyers of Africa. I saw one ranked higher than BHN and Sakata in transparency and laughed so much. Who even came up with that 1m bed width, 50cm path way, 30cm emitters spacing, 2 rolls drip per bed? I mean who is that de.mon? Who exactly is that dev.il? The Asians evi.l plan for African small farmers. Period!
I am not saying the Asian companies do not have good products, all I am saying is that they give Africa cheap stuff that most farmers are looking for. Asians are like that in everything. Even their vehicles produced for Africa are terrible. You can try it. Just try negotiating with any Chinese seller online, or face to face, the first question asked is your location. And they give you exactly what they think you deserve. While they give the American and European buyers the highest quality but with premium price, they give Africa cheap and terrible products. But if you look deep, they make more profit selling cheap stuff, and it is even more expensive to buy those cheap stuff too. I don't argue, but if you cannot still see it, your arithmetical skill is extremely poor. How dear you say any of those Asian seeds makers is better than Hezara? Israel is more honest, trust worthy, more opened, etc. Have you even seen research papers from Asian made public? How dear you compare any of those Asian seed companies with Takii? Oh! How can you say any of them has better tomatoes than BHN? Thank God for America. God bless that nation. I heard Harvard even has a section that you can get papers translated. That is a nation. God bless the United States. Huawei tried that mess with the US, just look at the knock out Trump gave that company. lol. You dear not play pranks on the US as quality production is never compromised.

As for me and my household, henceforth we have
1. cut down drastically fresh food purchases from uncontrolled open markets.
2. started a garden to produce organically quality food. I wish to open a thread on gardening because this Agricultural section is not for it. I have posted about it previously. Mostly hustlers are here. The right sections are Food and Health. But if created there, I am sure the glorious, Almighty Supermods will definitely move it back here. So, I will just continue here. Feel free to contact me if your aim is to have various veggies in your garden produced 80-100% organically.
3. started per-boiling any grain bought for 15 minutes (Even imported are terrible, "Chinese boys no dey smile, esp with their plastic rice". And I pour away the water, then wash very well before I start proper cooking or boiling. Even with all kinds of meat (except I know the farmer is pure organic), and fish.
4. started eating more of bean cakes and steamed blended cowpeas or beans. Why? The outer skin which absorbs most of the chemicals are peeled off. And In fact, I remove the skin of all cowpeas just to get rid of the high pesticide content. Too damn much.
5. started producing my own lactose and gluten free milk, tofu, and cheese. (Still trying to work on getting the right procedure to re-populate our bacteria gut, and good flora washed away by all these deadly food and antibiotics, I don't believe in using probiotics. Just still skeptical about it. So, until then, let me continue my lactose and gluten free diary products)

If you like come and ask me again the solutions I have for not using chemicals since I am campaigning saint inorganic. Perhaps, you expect me to start spelling it out from A to Z like we are in kindergarten class (not campaigning against inorganic, just making the public know that inorganic producers do not follow the rules, and no one is checking them). If you like continue killing the consumers of your products with high pesticides, and claiming you must make profit. If you like read, digest, and apply my tips. The Unde.rtaker is nearby. Cancer is getting extremely high in Africa. My prayer is that after reading my articles, and you do not even want to care about taking positive steps in observing withdrawal rules thereby not poisoning the consumers of your products(not saying you stop inorganic, or start practising organic), may dev.il visit you with cancer. Amen!

A long and well articulated post!
Thank you for taking your time to construct this post. I really appreciate the facts up there.

No 7 though I have tasted good, sweet and delicious tomato o. Thanks to Rijk Zwaan. But good things aren't cheap at all.

Permit me to place an ad/pics here

Tomato is very expensive now. The rain is here already. Informed farmers are taking advantage of our rainy season tomato variety, Gamhar RZ! It's yield and high resistances is just fabulous!

Below are the pics shared with us by a happy and grateful farmer. At Rijk Zwaan we don't only share happiness, we share a healthy life!

Stop being a spectator! Hurry and grab your own pack of Gamhar RZ. Limited stock available.

Call/WhatsApp Samuel on 08028950546 to place your order.

@Pistotita. Can we chat on 08028950546? I have some things on cucumber i will want you to discuss with you. Thanks

Seedforthagro1:
Tomato is very expensive now. The rain is here already. Informed farmers are taking advantage of our rainy season tomato variety, Gamhar RZ! It's yield and high resistances is just fabulous!

Below are the pics shared with us by a happy and grateful farmer. At Rijk Zwaan we don't only share happiness, we share a healthy life!

Stop being a spectator! Hurry and grab your own pack of Gamhar RZ. Limited stock available.

Call/WhatsApp Samuel on 08028950546 to place your order.

I am aware of the following characteristics of GAMHAR RZ:

a. Type - Oblong Plum
b. Fruit weight - 100 -120gr
c. Yield: Not specified
d. High Resistance: Tomato Mosaic Virus (2 strains), Fusarium Wilt (2 out of 3 strains), Verticillium (2 out of the 3 well known strain).
Intermediate Resistance: Nematodes (3 out of 3 strains)
e. Brix level - Not specified.


My comnent
I believe it may favor me more if doing commercial. It looks promising for it. It fits more into my kind of production if I engage tractor and transplanter. It seems plant population for 1 acre is 10,000 with the little I know about it, except I hear otherwise. Therefore, if I was to use this cultivar, I would go on a pilot to make sure I get at least 29 fruits per plant to meet up with the present optimum standards set by excellent cultivars. Your arithmetic must be sound before you use my approach, and that's not working blindly


Questions
1. How can I battle other pathogens found in my soil that this variety does not resist at all? Of course there are two deadly soil diseases found in my area which most likely will be found in my soil. How best should I fortify this cultivar?
Answer: I will consider all options (how many do you know? this is where limitations come in and why theory is the first step before practical. So, go back to your drawing board and study hard) available.

2. How can I battle other environmental diseases it cannot tolerate? What will be my chemical formulation?
Answer: I would check my database (on my laptop, or in my tablet, or in my phone) and formulate different options streamlined to 2 or 3 at the end of the day.


Success Factor
1. How well can I predict the soil and environmental conditions for my real project?
2. If I cannot predict up to 80%, my success rate is reduced.
3. Next is pilot. If I get 29 and above fruits, I know that yes, I am excellently good. Of course having lesser fruits does not mean I cannot do it. All I have to do is translate my figures and predict my yield.
3. How well can I replicate the success top notch factors I noticed during my pilot. (You must be prepared mentalily, emotionally, and financially. Perhaps your irrigation is faulty, and you know you cannot feed the farm like how you will feed the pilot, score yourself lower. Perhaps, you aren short of workers, you access yourself how much you do during pilot, and use that as a benchmark for what an individual can do. Of course, you then need to look at your age, health, etc and give more or lesser efficiency to your workers. Until you meet your workers and access them well you can do this ptoperly, but you can make a good guess. Or when you see a tiny worker not as tough as you; perhaps, you may want to reject him. (You do not want to use mulch, do not use during pilot. You want to use microbes, use them in pilot, etc)
4. Lets say I was on pilot right now, If another wilt killed my plants with a procedure during pilot, I would drop it. It will not survive on the field. If one looked promising, I would find ways to increase efficiency.
5. Based on 3 and 4, I would scale up or scale down.
I can say that this variety is in the same category with Chibli that I analyzed in one of my posts.


My comparison with the popular cobra, platinum, and padma
It looks like it has the potential of higher production if on free disease land due to its medium size of fruit just like chibli. However, the number of fruits it can produce in comparison with the 3 other cultivars determine if to ditch it or use it. It's cons is that TYCLV, Early Blight, Late Blight, Bacteria spot leaves, bacteria wilt, etc will finish it on infected land if seedlings fortification is not done well. You can have zero kg on 100 ha if wilt sets in. And since most people target rainy season, it is better you guard against what you predict can go wrong. Better start your pilot now in preparation for next year planting session.

Seedforthagro1:
@Pistotita. Can we chat on 08028950546? I have some things on cucumber i will want you to discuss with you. Thanks

In fact, I know someone who is near your farm with the intention of doing what I call a massive project, but starting gradually with cautious tactics, maybe if you guys prove to be good and not just about sales, mutual benefits can come up. I am a business man sir. A no dey do pilots free for seeds companies sir. Can do it for myself and keep it to my self, or share among friends. But make I do pilots, seed sellers come use am to make millions, a no be "mufu". lol. Telling you the truth, and I am serious and straight forward. (Not saying you want me do pilot for you sir, of course not).

Why am I saying this? I have been contacted by many seeds agents/importers who were trying to break into Nigeria at that time. And they came like they wanted me to assist them individually, and even bought some things I recommended. I do not sell things really like that, but if you want to try strains of microbes I use, you gat to buy it. Or do I give you free? If you do not want to use any of my approach, so be it. And it does not mean I cannot still fine tune that which you want to use. I do it everytime. But later, they felt I was obliged to do the pilots for them cos they got something from me. Most of them turned to be my enemies. A send dem? Lol. A beg, na person wey Naija never show pepper go dey shake at "promising promises". But na lie, most are to use and dump. But I have met excellent people too.Very lovely, helpful people. Such is life.

On the other hand, you do not realise I have chatted with you before, and your responses were total put off. I told one of my ex boys to call you because he wanted to do a small plot near his home, and he complained bitterly about your response in particular (like it was more of sales). And I gave him my phone to chat you, and sorry, I was not so impressed with your responses likewise. So, I went far away to Phillipines to get what we thought you could have given us. No yawa! I won't want to start saying this company I approached cos I know, that is bad business already for you. Why? Cos, we got a very good deal with one bad a.ss excellent customer care. That technical man I spoke with can spend hours on chat showing solutions. And that's how I always learn.

We will talk soon sir when I am free. Thanks bro!

Please my Ogas them why is this yellowish on my cucumber, I am a first timer.
What should I do?

kripen:
Please my Ogas them why is this yellowish on my cucumber, I am a first timer.
What should I do?

Your image cannot give me a clear picture of the condition of the plants. You should post another picture where I can see more leaves, and the plant vigor as a whole. But I remeber that your plants look so tiny. And if in this rainy season they are malnourished, you have not yet got the concept of cucumber.

Anyway, look at the back of the leaves affected, and tell me what you see. Any pest, the color, size, etc, larvae etc

Pistotita:


Your image cannot give me a clear picture of the condition of the plants. You should post another picture where I can see more leaves, and the plant vigor as a whole. But I remeber that your plants look so tiny. And if in this rainy season they are malnourished, you have not yet got the concept of cucumber.

Anyway, look at the back of the leaves affected, and tell me what you see. Any pest, the color, size, etc, larvae etc

.
More pic. Observing the leaf will be done 2moro

kripen:
.
More pic. Observing the leaf will be done 2moro

never joke with magnesium in vegetable farming, its good to supplement magnesium to your cucumber very 2weeks starting from week 4 or when you notice the deficiency on a single plant. This let your harvest stay longer.

Boss, please where can I get magsul or feed graded Epsom salt at cheaper rate.

Can you also give me address of federal ministry of agriculture in Lagos state, thanks.

I have been using the the pharmacy espom salt but not economical, 300 grams goes for #600. I do enjoy the result though.

FMCASH:
Boss, please where can I get magsul or feed graded Epsom salt at cheaper rate.

Jubaili used to sell 25kg at a good price. But I don't use their feed graded MgSO4 again. One of my boys even called me this morning, and asked me for 1 bag out of the ones I had stored some months ago. I gave him at vrry good price. The issue is that the bag have torn, and I asked them pour the content inside feed bag in 25kgs. If you really need it, I can give you the remaining two bags at a very good price. And that's 50kg which you will use for many months if you are doing small scale. It's in Epe, if you wanna check them first. But you can also choose to have then sent by bus.

Can you also give me address of federal ministry of agriculture in Lagos state, thanks.

Area 11, FCDA Garki, Abuja

Not sure if Liason office in Lagos at Tafawa Balewa is still functional. I think Mines and Steel is also in the building. Not sure as its been long I went there. I usually deal more with Abuja.

I have been using the the pharmacy espom salt but not economical, 300 grams goes for #600. I do enjoy the result though.

Not economical. I think the last time I asked about another brand, 25kg was less than N10,000.

Pistotita:


Skin is rough, very light skin, extremely sweet (brix level is extremely high), huge yield, tolerant to extreme heat, and majorly sold to malls and grocery stores. Open market will not accept it cos it spoils easily in the sun. We like bad things in Naija. Those hard skinned cukes are sold cos they favor traders and retailers. Dem no send you the consumer. If you want the best cukes, go for light skin and return to say I am a liar. Cu999 is one one the most tasteless cucumber I have ever eaten. Eat that stuff? Never again. lol. I will never allow it grow big if I want to eat it. In fact, I cannot. With those hard seeds inside. Not me. May be you.

The seeds are expensive too. Can you buy 1 seed for N20 to around N90? If you can, I will give you contacts.

Of course you can cultivate it outside. I said new varieties can tolerate up to 40C. You think say na joke? Not all. Some are for extremely cold like during winter. We do not have winter here. This technology is from Israel for extreme harsh weather areas. And the yield is crazily high.

But the market here is so limited. You can only do max of 1,000 plant to start with to test the market if you.can hustle it out. It can produce for 6 months if under greenhouse, but will die in 2 months outside. I have removed 65 from a variety over 2.5 months. I was leaving the apartment so I removed the plant, else, it was still rocking. what do you expect when you have 3 to 4 cukes per node, and no pollination, with hydroponics, hahahha. I better do just 1/8 plot than set up 15 useless plots far away in the bush.

I'm up for it because I believe in my passion for agriculture and my zeal to know more. No one knows it all, so when you meet someone with superior knowledge than yours, why not keep calm and learn. You know market differs and I stay in Rivers state, so I might need a cucumber that can easily penetrate the market. I do hope the said variety is light green and the skin smooth, if that's the case we are set for the seeds. Thanks

pipi84:


I'm up for it because I believe in my passion for agriculture and my zeal to know more. No one knows it all, so when you meet someone with superior knowledge than yours, why not keep calm and learn.

I actually had actually written a deserving response initially. But after pressing the submit button, my internet connection got disconnected and was not delivered. That was a signal I should caution myself.

I have mentioned it several times that the "you" second person personification is not meant for the person I am responding to, but it is our way of talking in Nigeria.

Just wanna say you are free to teach me, and I am teachable. You can start posting here to showcase how knowledgeable you are. I am calm since I have met you here. Please, go on.

You know market differs and I stay in Rivers state, so I might need a cucumber that can easily penetrate the market. I do hope the said variety is light green and the skin smooth, if that's the case we are set for the seeds. Thanks

Goodluck!

Thanks, will get back to you

Pistotita:

Jubaili used to sell 25kg at a good price. But I don't use their feed graded MgSO4 again. One of my boys even called me this morning, and asked me for 1 bag out of the ones I had stored some months ago. I gave him at vrry good price. The issue is that the bag have torn, and I asked them pour the content inside feed bag in 25kgs. If you really need it, I can give you the remaining two bags at a very good price. And that's 50kg which you will use for many months if you are doing small scale. It's in Epe, if you wanna check them first. But you can also choose to have then sent by bus.


Area 11, FCDA Garki, Abuja

Not sure if Liason office in Lagos at Tafawa Balewa is still functional. I think Mines and Steel is also in the building. Not sure as its been long I went there. I usually deal more with Abuja.


Not economical. I think the last time I asked about another brand, 25kg was less than N10,000.

Pistotita:


Your image cannot give me a clear picture of the condition of the plants. You should post another picture where I can see more leaves, and the plant vigor as a whole. But I remeber that your plants look so tiny. And if in this rainy season they are malnourished, you have not yet got the concept of cucumber.

Anyway, look at the back of the leaves affected, and tell me what you see. Any pest, the color, size, etc, larvae etc

I didn't observe anything at the back of the leaf.
As at 2day most of the cucumber plant are turning yellowish and notice some of the fruits are getting dried off.

Please what should I do to remedy it as soon as possible.

kripen:


I didn't observe anything at the back of the leaf.
As at 2day most of the cucumber plant are turning yellowish and notice some of the fruits are getting dried off.

Please what should I do to remedy it as soon as possible.

Pardon me brother, your pictures are still not okay and it is extremely difficult to diagnose what is actually wrong. But I will just give you a safer approach to try solving your challenge.

It seems the challenge is more of nutrients imbalance than viral infection, just like someone mentioned it, but he stopped at Magnesium deficiency. However, since I am not sure of your viral preventive approach, I suggest you treat it also.

From your picture, I am looking at Molybdenum, Magnesium, and Iron deficiencies. And since you did not post good pictures to really check the upper part and I can see even the newest plant at the top, I don't want to guess, I will just add all these 3 elements to the formular you should use.

But really, it may not be that all the deficiencies I mentioned are caused by lack of these nutrients or elements in your soil, but may be due to excess of other elements which cause toxicity. For example, you may initially or still have enough potassium and Magnesium, but if there is calcium toxicity, your plants will also show symtoms of these deficiencies.

Fruits drying up (actually it is called flower abortion) shows me that your plants lack nutrients which assist fruits to develop without challenges. Culled fruits is another kind of such deficiencies. Bro, your yield is already 30% below optimum yield (my own estimation.....lol)

Now, the funny issue is that all nutrients may be abundant in your soil, but something is obstructing absorption of certain elements. A major reason can ne "off balance" PH of your water or soil. If you have a means of measure PH, I could have said, get me the ph readings of strategic places on your farm. But I guess you don't have.

Basal fertilization and Organic Matters is so vital. Check my posts on these two topics. Some people just read, and ignore good points. If you had done an excellent soil preparation by bombarding the land with manure, ph can never go off around neutral with tolerance % which is ok for any kind of plant, except some that require acidic soil. It's why old farmers start saying that some crops cannot grow on a certain land, but the simple solution is ph correction. This problem is just too rampant with many small scale farmers who don't have simple measuring tools. And you don't even need all these measuring tools if you follow my basal fertilization procedure.

It is so unfortunate that you are not using drip, cos if you have one, I could have prescribed what to add to your irrigation water and you fertigate. It is why I don't joke with fertigation. I must install it because I know workers can be funny. So, for emergency cases like this, fertigation is a savior. Even micronutrients can easily be added to shoot their content up. But you are left with only foliar application, but you could have used two ways which are feeding via roots and foliar. Take drip installation serious. I pity farmers who think drip is too expensive. But really, the losses that occur most times are just extremely too expensive in comparison with buying the right tools you need.

Lastly, during rainy season nutrients get washed away. I don't know about your land topology how you made your beds. Beds making can be funny, as the right approach is north south style(there are mobile apps for this, or you use the olden days way: sun rises from the east and sets in the west). But land topology can make me override this rule. And I may want to make my beds to either block water from running off my land so nutrients don't wash away, or I may want there to be run off but I am going to be really prepared for managing nutrient deficiencies. Therefore, it boils to the kind of crop I am managing. Can it withstand drought or not? Can it withstand flood or not? And many other factors. Like I said, these solutions come with experience..

Dearest friend, you see that you must just know the theory of these things, and then you use common sense to trouble-shoot. It becomes so easy when you know these things. Jumping into forest is too expensive for me. I would rather sit down to learn the basis first. My approach of teaching or training is always online. I want you to study the plants you choose to learn at home first before going to any bush. And it depends on the individual. First, I try to understand the person's personality (of course without meeting the oerson, it is possible). It's not everytime I will start trouble shooting, so, my job is to make you have diagnostic skills.

I pray it is not PH imbalance as I do not see a fast remedy especially with very robust roots like cucumber and tomato since uoh aren't using fertigation. If you do side placement for ph, it will not easily penetrate down, though there is rain now, it will still not work well. And moreso, I don't know what to tell you to use since you cannot even measure it.

I believe you have added NPK like I told you the last time. If you still notice the granules in the soil are enough, no need to add more.

Therefore, get a very good magneisum/Sulphur and an excellent micronutrients formular (Bo, Mn, Cu, Fe, Zn, and Mo) and bombard the leaves for the first 3 days early in the morning. If you notice changes, fire it for another 3 days. Also, on the first day, get any of the following: Dimeforce, Magic Force or Action 40 (any out of these 3 is very ok), and add Imiforce or another brand called Contact or so (I intentionally mentioned brand names here so you don't get confused, else, I would have used active formulars) and bombard the leaves. The only con in this is that you will chase away pollinators. Therefore, spray this in the evening and add any product that contains Mancozeb to it to protect the plants from fungi infection (just Mancozeb only). So that you will not drastically reduce the pollinators population. When they come early the following morning, they quickly sense the systemic action of these compound and dash off like Usain Bolt. The compounds are deep inside the plants by that time. But if you were in vegetative stage, I would tell you to bombard in the morning or in the evening to kill everything you can kill. I am taking my time to explain reasons for any action I suggest so that you just don't go spray rubbish. Personally, I don't use Carbendazim for cucumber cos it does not really fight downy mildew which is the major disease in your region. So, just leave out the following brands: SAAF, Funguforce and Forcelet. They are waste of money, energy, and time if you are fighting downy mildew. As for SAAF, it is not worth it, just use only mancozeb, and follow instruction. The quantity of mancozeb in SAFF has been reduced.

Next time take bed preparation serious.

I use minimum of 1 month for bed preparation, it is why I cannot compromise mulch. Otherwise weed will take over before I sow seeds. When I say use mulch, I know what I am saying. I always innoculate my manure with strains of microbes multiplied in the lab first, and then further multiplied on the manure I am using, at least for 21 days. Then, I add enzymes, Amino acids, and some other beneficial microbes that accelerate decomposition of manure into compost. Not only that, I push up the vigor of my plants with microbes so that their immune system will be so high, and leaves will be broad. Therefore, I have no choice but to prune. Bro, everything I do is for a particular reason, and not because someone told me on nairaland. There are other strains for different crops to create other beneficial things. And there are strains I use fertigation to apply to my soil, and there are strains I use with foliar feed. Unfortunately, it is hard to start mentioning these strains and chemicals. Like I was chatting with a good farmer yesterday who said he is new (I love that man), he wanted details about some chemicals and microbes. I looked at the chat and said, now, you gat to be really polite. Why? I wanted first to react, but I decided not to. Why? Some of chemicals are used to make bomb. Even people who sell don't sell anyhow. They must know exactly what you will use them for. And funny that brother also agreed with me, and gave me an instance when ONSA even banned Urea. Urea? Hmmmm! I knew about it though, I made further research that time, and when I knew the process these Boko Haram guys use on urea, I was flabbergasted. But I think all Urea now in circulation has been adjusted in a way it cannot be turned to weapon. When I know that it is those ground "gringoris" fighting in Sambisa Forest that will come after me if I introduce anyone to it and the person misused the stuff. Not naval officers, not airforce, not police, or even SARS. Those ones coming would rain slaps on ones face before even knowing one is innocent later. Those trained palms that have carried AK-47 well well. Bros, a beg, no ask me about chemicals and microbes. I cannot get myself into trouble that will require my family members to start visiting Pastor Adeboye to talk to Mr President. Lol.
Special micronutrients and amino acids are essential.

Goodluck sir!

Israel, the land filled with honey and gold
The modern day Israel is also a land filled with land and honey. Hmmm! Quite contrary to what she actually is. But looking deeply into it, they produce extremely high yield on what we call terrible land. They use extreme small areas of land The present day Israel does not have good physical land. But their minds are fertile land areas. Their imagination is beyond ordinary.

The Netherlands, the home of compact veggie farming
The Netherlands is not as big as Lagos State, but she brings out extremely high yields from her land. Powerful cultivars which are not GMOs are produced in the country, just like Israel.

Japan, China and Korea lead Asia in everything
Smart Nigerians tell you to go to Bangkok because it has similar weather as ours. Well, I will not argue because there is element of truth in it. But I choose to combine the strengths of each region in the continent. For cheap styles, Bangkok is ok; however, I don't take their seeds serious because of their attitude. Thailand is not an opened place when it comes to sharing information. I quit using their seeds. When I realised an importer of Sakata products is around, I just said "good, good, good!". At last, these seeds from Thailand raping poor farmers here have got a good competitor. If you check Sakata very well, almost all its products are competitive all over the world. That is the power of Japanese technology. China sells so many extremely good unbranded seeds via aliexpress and alibaba. If you really know what you are looking for, trust me that you will get what is better than Sakata, East West, Lion, ThaiAgro, or any other brands. I read one thread on backyard tomato farming, and the OP even showed his readers how to order from China with free shipping option. (Honestly, if you do not know how to dig deep, you are dead). On these sites, you may even get carriers of these glorious brands, and you will be shocked how cheap you get them. What does that tell you? Learn how to hunt for your products yourself. It is too expesive to buy from Nigerian importers because they usually place over 300% profit on seeds

Brasil, another corrupt but bad a as.s progressive nation
Brasil is one of the places I look into. A brilliant nation which is performing very well. May be corrupt but still progressive. A leader in bio energy, esp with sugarcane. But our own sugarcanes are chewing sticks. lol!

Hawaii! Hawaii!! Hawaii!!! God bless America
I will choose the US over any nation in the world. Why? The truth is I am over 80% made by the nation. The country releases information so much freely. Not only the educational departments and institutions, but the people themselves share info freely. They have the highest number of gardeners who share free info on youtube. So, why would I want to listen to those Asians that can hold info with firm hands?

BHN, the blessing from Florida
Before the question of Hawaii being part of the US, Florida was the home of tropical garderners. BHN which is bssed in FL produces only tomato seeds. Just tomato. I use their products everytime. But just be careful as the place is not as hot as West Africa.

Nigeria, a backward and waster of gifts
As great and intelligent Nigerian scientists are, she is her own worst and number one enemy. Farmers in SW, SE, and SS should not think there is abundant land for farming for them. Infact, I am going to be serious, they do not have up to 1/4 of the Netherlands (my view). But remember that the Netherlands is smaller than Lagos state. An evidence is the total collapse of cash crop production. This aspect of farming died with Chief Obafemi Awolowo. I have seen many rubber plantations rotten away. Michelle was forced by government to start training local farmers, but the story is still same. When you encourage thuggery and fetish acts, how can there be progress? The land in SW is the best for cash crop. But it is the worst place you can dream of establishing one. You may be extremely successful in it, you may be able to break the land grabbers, and other evil stakeholders might bow before you, but you may pay with the blood of your first born, or last born. You either have a strong "jazz", or you are prayerful. But come to think of it, why would I want to fight unnecessary wars? I was more of cash crops in my early days. They brought me into Agric. But I realised that it was a battle that does not worth it. Instead, I want to go into an area I can have rest of mind, and use the energy I wanted to fight cash crop evil stakeholders in building other areas of my life, especially spiritually. It is not funny to be renewing "juju" because of just 1,000 ha of land that you are protecting. To me it is more expensive to start having multiple 21 days fasting cos of protection when I could have just avoided the whole "Kasalama". I am not discouraging anyone. Whatever your passion is, do it very well. But do not pay with your life, or with that of your family members.

Nigerians in diaspora, Listen! Nigeria is not smiling
Agriculture is very a promising industry. It is definitely more profitable in Nigeria than in most places in the world. But her people are desperately wicked. Infact, Jeremiah should have put Nigerians in that portion instead of using the phrase "My people".

I think more of vertical growth than horizontal growth
I would rather think of turning 1 plot to 6 six plots yield without actually using 6 plots. And then, convert the money I want to use for buying 6 more plots into installation of security on my single plot. And also to make my life more comfortable there by installing solar energy, bio gas, satellite Internet connectivity, subscription with Neflix, purchase a strong mini truck (we can it" pick up" here), etc.

Life is too short, and I definitely must enjoy mine
I want to spend my days eating fresh, organic vegetables and fruits; drink organic grape wine, organic apple, orange, lemon, lime, tangalo, pineapple, papaya, etc fresh juices. If you decide to choose profit over good health, who am I to criticize you? Your life, your world, your destiny. But if you believe in life after death, or you believe in reward in the next life, just try to re-evaluate your life. Is it really worth the stress?

Finally, Expanding horizontally is not necessary expanding. Buying more land areas and spreading on more large areas of land does not mean you are more efficient or improving. Most times, it is less efficient in SW, SE and SE.

You can make your backyard garden a profitable yard if you decide to think out of the box. Always think big. Thinking big is not trying to figure out covering larger areas of land in places you are going to fight some useless wars


What prompted this post? I did not plan for it, but got the inspiration this morning when I got a call from a government official. And she said someone directed her to my thread. Yes, I am not blocking people from doing commercial farming, but what this country has offered her citizens is terrible. Let her go back to her bosses to review land laws in Nigeria. How can some terrible set of people claim ownership of expanses of land cos they inherited them? Are they paying taxes on the land? How can Nigeria determine ownership of land due to inheritance? Our law says ownership is 99 years lease, so how generations claim ownership baffles me. Lol. But do government apply such law? Why all some new lazy people hold on to what they cannot use? Why allow them hold on to them? Land is a natural gift. No one owns it. Does anyone own water? Let government find a way to take these land areas from all land owners we call land grabbers. And turn them to Farming Estates . No compensation for anyone. Did they own it? Of course not. Just because their geat grand whatever had claimed the land many years ago. Who did they pay ownership fees to? And do they pay tax on those idle forests? Nigeria think! So, I hope more people can come out to follow up with this crusade. Nigeria will soon turn to a dead land if corruption, false or faulty ownership claims, and fast making money mind set of youths are not addressed.



My post should not discourage you if you really want to pursue cash crops. Infact, I will give you all the red flags. And it is left with you to know what to do. But as for me, I do not think I want to invest my time, money, and energy in a fertile land which is dormant; therefore, all those who we have discussed about cash crop should not feel I am targeting them or discouraging them. I am targeting government.

SIR, I NEED AN ADVICE ON THE BEST CUCUMBER VARIETY SEED, I DID MURANO IN 2015 FIRST WEEK OF HARVEST WAS SUCCESSFUL ALONG THE LANE I WAS HIT BY DOWNY "CUCUMBER DISEASES" WITHING A TWINKLY OF AN EYE THE WHOLE LEAVE GOT DRIED UP. PLEASE SIR, I HAVE JUST ACQUIRED A 2 PLOTS OF BUILT A 3 BED BY THE SIDE I INTEND LEAVING MY JOB TO PAY ALL ATTENTION TO AGRICULTURE COME JANUARY NEXT JANUARY. I WILL BE GLAD IF YOU CAN AVAIL ME THE INFORMATION ON THE BEST CUCUMBER SEED WITH HIGH RESISTANCE TO DISEASE.

DEBJOCH1:
SIR, I NEED AN ADVICE ON THE BEST CUCUMBER VARIETY SEED, I DID MURANO IN 2015 FIRST WEEK OF HARVEST WAS SUCCESSFUL ALONG THE LANE I WAS HIT BY DOWNY "CUCUMBER DISEASES" WITHING A TWINKLY OF AN EYE THE WHOLE LEAVE GOT DRIED UP.

Murano can never die within a twinkle of an eye. You talked of first harvest, and I think you had more harvests.

You did not have downy mildew along the lane after first harvest. It had been there before your first harvest. You just did not pay attention to it. And you did not treat it because new leaves that came out were always green. But the damage was getting worse, and the disease defeated the crop by overwhelming it's ability to resist it. In fact it tried to even give you 1, 2 or 3 harvests.

PLEASE SIR, I HAVE JUST ACQUIRED A 2 PLOTS OF BUILT A 3 BED BY THE SIDE I INTEND LEAVING MY JOB TO PAY ALL ATTENTION TO AGRICULTURE COME JANUARY NEXT JANUARY. I WILL BE GLAD IF YOU CAN AVAIL ME THE INFORMATION ON THE BEST CUCUMBER SEED WITH HIGH RESISTANCE TO DISEASE.

Sir, it is not the best cucumber seed you need. Infact, there is nothing like the best seed. What you need is to improve your knowledge on:

1. the biological characteristics of the crop(s),
2. the agricultural best practice (bed preparation, nutrient management, and pests and diseases management. for the crop(s), and
3. the financial aspect of cultivating the crop(s).

You should try to get trained. I believe you can train yourself if you know how to dig deep. But if not, find a good mentor. If you have to pay for it, find a good program, and dig deep. We have identified Murano, Greengo, Cu999, and Darina as good cultivars on this thread. There are still other ones that have special unique traits.

I hope I have answered your questions. If you have more, feel free to ask.

Pistotita:

Murano can never die within a twinkle of an eye. You talked of first harvest, and I think you had more harvests.

You did not have downy mildew along the lane after first harvest. It had been there before your first harvest. You just did not pay attention to it. And you did not treat it because new leaves that came out were always green. But the damage was getting worse, and the disease defeated the crop by overwhelming it's ability to resist it. In fact it tried to even give you 1, 2 or 3 harvests.



Sir, it is not the best cucumber seed you need. Infact, there is nothing like the best seed. What you need is to improve your knowledge on:

1. the biological characteristics of the crop(s),
2. the agricultural best practice (bed preparation, nutrient management, and pests and diseases management. for the crop(s), and
3. the financial aspect of cultivating the crop(s).

You should try to get trained. I believe you can train yourself if you know how to dig deep. But if not, find a good mentor. If you have to pay for it, find a good program, and dig deep. We have identified Murano, Greengo, Cu999, and Darina as good cultivars on this thread. There are still other ones that have special unique traits.

I hope I have answered your questions. If you have more, feel free to ask.

. THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THE INFORMATION.

More tomatoes farms are beginning to get ruined.

1. Tomato cannot tolerate flood,
2. Blights are destroying farms at this time, and
3. Bacterial Wilt is super active at this time.

Best of luck to all tomato farmers. OH! I wished I was on farm doing 5 acres tomato. Ha! That is super return at this time.

@pistotita, thanks for all d super info from u. Pls Sir, how thick should a mulch be and which colour(s) is/are d best. Thanks

Juliana7:
@pistotita, thanks for all d super info from u. Pls Sir, how thick should a mulch be and which colour(s) is/are d best. Thanks

I do not use thin mulch. My mulch is as thick as greenhouse poly cover. The kind used for orchards cos I don't want to keep ordering every 6 months. The cost of buying every 6 months is too much, and so I don't use those ones. I prefer to spend very high during set up, and not spend on mulch again. That is my style. I am not known for using cheap materials that will make me pay with my health.

It is hard to get my kind of mulch, but if you can import, you may be lucky (manufacturers sell in bulk). Those thin mulches are extremely cheap in the manufacturing nations, and that is what they use them there mostly, and they don't mind buying every six months. But I am importing here, I cannot be paying shipping costs every six months. So, I always get quality. The first mulch on my old farm has been packed inside. It is over 6 years I have been using it. And still durable.

I don't blame importers cos they simply import what farmers tell them they want. It is obvious here also that farmers will always go for extremely cheap mulch . lol.

Color depends on what you want to cultivate, and the kind of pests on your farm. I have different colors for different purposes. But generally most farmers use black. Black is just ok, but will not give maximum light reflection which dies not give you the best yield. Even the so called silver kinds of mulch around are less efficient. If you get the real silver color, it works well, esp with tiny pests. I can never use those fake silver mulches imported to Nigeria, but some are good.

Lastly, what is common is recycled materials to make the mulch. I don't use them as recycled are not really organic friendly and not pure. To use recycled, the manufacturer must be well known with good reputation. Otherwise, one is using his hands to buy cancer. And that is what I see around mostly in Nigeria Why do you all think cancer is on the high rate in Nigeria? Nigeria and Africa are dumping grounds for extremely cheap and fake Chinese products.

Make research on the color best for your plant. But can be expensive. So, you may want to just go for black. And if using another color apart from black, it must be double color cos black is still needed for blocking out light.

I am also concerned with technology kind of paint used. I usually ship my chemicals for making mulch from a reputable company to the factory making it. I don't joke with such stuff.


Anyway, I don't expect many people to pay attention to all these instructions cos they are less concerned. All they want is cheaper way of production.

I hope I have answered your questions.

My kind of tomato commercial farm
What I have written here is what I wanted to implement this year, but as I have written earlier, I am recuperating. Well, after a deep thought, I really think I should let this idea off me as I do not think I want to do it again. Therefore, I will release the concept for anyone capable of doing it. I think it is time to finally say bye bye to this part of the world, and explore another continent. However, my interest in cash crop has been rekindled as a result of someone I encountered recently. And just this morning, another person asked me about cash crops.

Let me tell you this: Cash crops made me look into Agriculture. Honestly, Vegetables were the very last area I could think of. Anyone in diaspora always think about cash crops at home. So, I was not different. Being the person I am, I flew to Malaysia to check a plantatiin, and a processing factory (thanks to one of my siblings who was living there at that time). It looked good, but I did not consider the first priority which was getting land. By the time I realised the challenges of land, maxhineries, seedlings, etc, believe me, if you ask me to write about Palm Olein production, I could write 2,000 pages. But I always face reality, and I am a man who believes in gradual growth. I always do it small, and then expand gradually. I believe this is the best way to learn any new business. OK. I will write about cocoa later, and why I suspended it too. But right now, it feels like I should re-visit cash crops. It us an areas which does not need much attention at the initial stage, esp for anyone in diaspora.

List of areas I have really researched properly
1. Palm oil
2. Palm date
3. Coconut
4. Cashew (looked into it briefly, but I do not really like it)
5. Rubber (Actually, I worked with a staff of Michellin)
6. Cassava (I modelled a N2billion start up starch producing company which will export 70% of its product. Why did I quit. My partners wanted me to have the factor in Free Trade Zone because of the benefits of Free Trade zones. But the Danish I am working with told that was a big mistake. That cassava must be processed as soon as it is harvested. I suggested having only the warehouse in Free Trade Zone, but we could not work it out well. Incentives my partners are going to lose if we put it on the farm killed the business. So, it dawn on me that they are just after the incentives, while I will do all the work. Well, not a bad experience afterall)
7. Cocoa Trading (I just seem not to like the idea of cocoa plantation after watching a documentary on how child slavery workforce is used in Abidjan. I just like the idea of Switzerland, the highest producer of candies and chocolate, but with not a single stand of cocoa on her soil.....lol)
8. Fishery
9. Bio diesel using Algea. (Oh! I was so deep into this work. But I faced the reality that even I am successful, oil monopolistic will crush my business)
10. Millet ( I realised that millet production in Nigeria news is a lie, but doable. Thanks to my father who cautioned me. I visited him, and was working on it, and he saw it. That was how he lectured me about it. Apparently, he knew the main Indian man who used to have millet farm in the US, and was exporting to Nigeria via Flour Mills in the 80s. Nigeria is an interesting place).
11. Beekeeping (Infact, it was a doctor in the University of Lagos that I first visited after reading his papers. I sent someone to a seminar he had in Osogbo, and was able to get contacts of stakeholders. Hmmm! Some people are making millions in this business, but I font like it cos of the aggressive nature of the bees we have here).
12. Apples, Pears, Grapes, Strawberries, rapsberry, other berries, Pomegranates, Kiwi, Sour-sop, Avocado, passion fruits, and other exotic varieties for tropics. (I know about 20 apple varieties which can grow in tropics because of their minimal low temperature requirement to blossom. The reality of tropical apple production started in Israel by an apple lover, and then a Bahamas lady developed another variety. The only challenge with tropical apple varieties is that the fast growing and apple producing types have very short shelf life of about 2 weeks under room temperature . So, they are designed primarily for wine production. Also, too much heat can alter the taste of the fruits of a paeticular common vareity, and they might taste funny Please do not mention Wambugu Apple in my presence as he is not the creator of that variety. Someone else created it. Infact, I still had a long conversation with a nursery owner of exotic fruits in Kenya this morning, who also said same that Wanbugu is not the creator of the variety The variety is an open secret to people who can research well, please, do not ask me about it as I do not want to make a topic on it).
Let me stop here.

Back to my kind of Commercial Tomato Farm
Dry season tomato production. And I intended to serve other open markets in Lagos, Ogun, and Oyo. I think it is possible to achieve. Mainwhile, I know one of the top hausa tomato and watermelon trader who told me that tomato buyers do not care. If they see quality products nearby, they will not stress themselves to Kaduna or other places to buy. I believe him cos these people are traders who are after profit. If they can cut away the cost of shipping from the north to Lagos, why not? Spoilage will be reduced too. And I realised that I just need one satisfied hausa buyer. He will push his friends to my farm. And he said that they will bombard me, and the idea of selling to other markets in Lagos or Ogun will be crushed. I laughed so hard.

Of course Tractors are essential on the farm. No mulch. Seriously, how many hectares will I mulch? lol Many concepts I have been sharing in this thread will will be implented in large scale. I just know that the tractor drivers must be my right hand men. They are the real farmers on site cos every equipment you can think of will be attached to tractors. Translanter, legumes and corn planters, sprayers, etc
Honestly, I wish there is a method to use rain fed, but as at this moment, I have no cheap solution (Should I visit Majek Fashek the rain maker? hahaha). So, irrigation is still the option available. And the idea of buying drip all over the farm seems to be really a tough one. Therefore, I decided not to compromise having the farm near a massive river. And implement furrow irrigation on a section. The other section will have Central Pivot System . I have seen a system that covers 50 ha. And finally, the last section will have drip irrigation . Having nethouses is a must for nursery and also production of veggie for grocery stores. I think having 4 farm locations is not a bad idea as a result of the sections I have mapped out. I will not want all my farms inside bush cos of nearness to river. Of course, each farm will have nursery, but wait! Maybe not. I can easily transport my seedlings to farm. Hmmm! I think, my urban center where I have greenhouses will have an improved laboratory where soil tests, tissue test, microbes mass production, and seedlings development will be made. I know exactly what should be there.

Unfortunately, I have lost interest in this project. So, I could not fine tune it. No plan to do any pilot again. So, this post is for people who have been asking me if I ever think vegetable commercial farms is a good business. I believe so. And I am sure, it can be tough, but will be rewarding of done well. If you have what it takes to open a commercial farm, start with a good pilot project. And run your farm with greenhouses profit. Let your greenhouse keep your farm going. Prepare for crop rotation with maize, legumes, and any other good crop for rainy season.

It will definitely take real effort. Having 50 ha is not bad, and using just 1 ha as a pilot is a good starting point. So, I am not against commercial farming. I concentrate on small farms because this is an area I find very interesting. So, to everyone asking me if I support commercial farming; my answer is yes, I do.

Best of luck to all rainy season farmers as we are having down pour of water daily. I miss being on farm. Yes, I do.

I am new in cucumber cultivation. if it was the day before yesterday I planted cucumber in my life. I want to ask if there is any treatment I need to give my cucumber inoder to avoid loss to insects and rodents.
Also, is staking compulsory in cultivating cucumber? I will be glad to hear responses[color=#990000][/color][font=Lucida Sans Unicode][/font]

Emladem:
I am new in cucumber cultivation. if it was the day before yesterday I planted cucumber in my life. I want to ask if there is any treatment I need to give my cucumber inoder to avoid loss to insects and rodents.
Also, is staking compulsory in cultivating cucumber? I will be glad to hear responses[color=#990000][/color][font=Lucida Sans Unicode][/font]

If you are doing 1 plot to 2ha, nothing stops you from staking. It is hybrid seed kinds you must use. If you are going on large land area like 10 ha, you use cheap seeds and no need for staking. With the market we have now, you should not go beyond 1 acre max with staking in my opinion. Small farms should stake

Staking plant spacing is different from non spacing plants spacing.

If you have sown seeds, your questions are too late. And there is little I can do. You may even think since it is raining, you do not need irrigation. lol. If no water, what else can I tell you? But you will be shocked how cucumber will start dying when there is a short rain break.

You do not know about it, and so you should have first learned about it before jumping into that farm. This is why many people fail. Farming is in the same league with mining . There are small scale miners too, and they always fail because they just work without mapping out good strategies.

Let me ask do. Can a doctor tell you what you must use before you fall sick? Nope. But he can be sure of giving you supplements to boost your immune system in order for you not to get sick. And then, he keeps watching over you. The same with the plants. You need to start with fortification of the plants, and then, the pests and diseases you see, you try to fight them. Also, you tackle most common environment all infection.

My recommendation

Go with God. This is my first suggestion.

1. Magicforce, or Dimeforce, or Action 40 for pesticides (I see before fowering, once in 2 weeks is ok during rainy season)
2. Mancozeb, Cabriduo and Matalyxl for fungicide (alternate all through, there are still other ones but start with these 3. Use more of mancozeb abd spray very well. You may heed to get stickers cos of rain.)
3. Cypermethrin and Lambda-Cyhalothrin (use after tour plants immune system are developed and pests cannot easily kill them again, use during flowering till the end of your project. If your plants are healthy, 7 days to 14 days interval is very ok)
5. Imidacloprid (use on seedlings and only when you see targeted pests it addresses. Do not just spray it anyhow)

If you do not prepare soil very well, you will not good yield no matter how nice you spray. Read through my thread to learn about basal nutrients application .

Also, get your nutritional management right.

Increasing your yield exponentially
1. Follow crop rotation rule.
2. Soil preparation and basal nurltruent application is compulsory
3. Fertigation makes life easy
4. Use chemicals responsibly
5. Tackle weeds. Never allow them grow
6. Install stakes efore sowing seeds
7. Bio Security and good hygiene of you and your workers is paramount. Most workers don't wash their working clothes. Use wisdom when talking to them.


But if you had sown seeds, and you are just asking these questions, I am sorry to tell you that be prepared to fail. If you are doing more than 3 plots per 2 workers, or you are doing more than 1 plot by yourself, just be ready to visit the hospital before you finish. There is a brother who landed in the hospital just this week on this cucumber issue cos he did what was too big for him to handle. He did not seek good counsel before he started. I just don't understand how you would have been fully prepared and ask me the kind of questions you put here.

Bless you!