MY EXPERIENCE

Because I knew nothing about farming and I wanted the experience and knowledge so badly, I decided to cultivate two farms separately. The first was purely mechanized farming and the second was purely manual farming

Manual farming: I engaged manual methods of cultivation for two acres of land. I cleared, burnt dried weeds, made heaps and planted. The clearing of the two acres of land took more than a month to clear. Labour refused to show up on the farm for several days. It took the intervention of a police officer before they eventually completed the clearing. It was so frustrating. I had a target as per when I wanted my maize to be harvested, but it was delayed by a month and some weeks interval. After clearing the farm, I had to wait for like 2 weeks for the weeds to dry up. It was after proper drying of the weeds, I had to employ another set of labour to burn the debris. Another wahala. . After so many futile attempts to get a reasonable labour to do the job, I decided to go with one of the staff that work for me at home. My dear nairalander, we did the burning ourselves. The lady did a very impressive job. I could do just a little since I have never done something of that nature in my life coupled with the fear of snakes . After the burning, I had to employ another set of labour to make heaps, this time around, I got northerners to do the job. Just two of them made the heaps within a week. After heap making, another set of labour came in to plant the seeds. While planting the seeds, I noticed one of the human planter pouring like 5-10 seeds in just one hole. Egbami!!
Expensive hybrid seeds o, he was wasting the seeds. I called his attention to the fact that I wanted just 2 seeds per hole. Children of God! By the time the seeds started germinating, there were like 10seedlings germinating at just one spot. I had to wipe my face to be sure of what I was seeing. Some holes had five maize seedlings, some were seven seedlings. We had to uproot the excesses and leave just 2-3 seedlings per hole

MECHANIZED FARMING: After the whole manual farming saga, I decided to test run a mechanized method on another acre of land. It took few days to prepare the land and plant my seeds. Everything happened with the speed of light. I couldn't believe my eyes, it was so cheap and stress less.

We started by doing a first ploughing on the land. Sprayed with herbicides, after some days, did a second ploughing and then planting of maize seeds and cassava stems

How were you able to access mechanized farming

Inspectahdeck:


You are right about the post shelling and preservation if the farmer is a novice on that.

Dry maize is stressful and profitable from my experience, far profitable than fresh maize. Once the spacing is right, usage of hybrid seeds and Cubs are good the outcome will be fantastic.

In farming I understand one has to leave room for pest. Antelopes invaded my farm last week and I addressed the issue and also took meat home

Hybrid seed matures after 75 days of planting, harvesting at the right time will reduce waste. Picture of my last harvest below I got 10 of that truck and sold at 90 naira/kg. I made millions something I will never get selling fresh.

Maize farmers in the north are making a killing selling dry maize.

I wish I can show a video of my present 20 hectares of maize

Help me out bro, I want to get into dry maize farming, I’m willing to work it out

Inspectahdeck:


It is very difficult sharing experience in a discus. I now understand why some experience farmers advise to keep quiet. I wrote my experience above and also shared pictures and you assume it is speculation.

Anyways, I get between 2.5-3.5 tons per hectare. It varies due to spacing as I use manual planting (labour) but in as much I supervise the planting. A picture below of my present manual maize farm spacing.

Finally, I will be mindful of any tone of question and might not answer if I find it offensive. Thanks.

2.5-3.5 tons is massive, is it after shelling the maize