₦airaland Forum

England, France, Germany voted against the US.

I agree with fluentinfor. The problem isn't inorganic fertilizer, but incorrect application of inorganic fertilizer. Even organic fertilizers can cause a lot of problems if incorrectly applied.

Some people wrongly believe that the only process the soil naturally replenishes her nutrients is organically (the decay of organic material). But soil also replenishes it's available nutrients inorganically from soil primary and secondary minerals. Soil minerals weather, break down, and dissolve, releasing nutrients that plants can take up. It should also be known that plant don't absorb nutrient in their organic form. Organic matter must undergo mineralization and be converted to inorganic form before plant can make use of them.

The advantage of inorganic fertilizer is that it contains high percentage of plant nutrients and it goes straight into the soil solution were it becomes immediately available for plant uptake. This becomes a problem when they are applied in excess. The excess nutrients can affect the plants negatively and also the environment. This can be avoided if the fertilizer is correctly applied.

To correctly use fertilizer, a soil test would be done to ascertain the initial levels of nutrients in the soil, the nutrient uptake by the plant is known and only the short fall applied. For soils in the tropics were the soils are highly weathered and there is high rainfall, split application is done to avoid leaching.


Same with herbicides and pesticides. If we can use inorganic drugs to cure our sickness, why can't we do same to plants. The problem here is mainly the 'abuse' of pesticides. Just as if drugs are abused, they become harmful. Pesticides contains labels that shows the right quantity to be applied, but most people can't follow it. I wrote on this before.
https://www.nairaland.com/3731514/simple-way-calibrate-knapsack-sprayer

Also after spraying pesticides, they are waiting periods before harvest can be made.Some farmers can even spray today and harvest today.


In a nutshell, the problem isn't the use of inorganic materials but the abuse of inorganic materials.

jobzytravels:
A Local farmer told me that a plantain sucker produces their best bunch at first harvest and the size of bunches they produce after that becomes smaller and smaller and also the lifeline of a plantain farm is 3 years. How true is this please?

It might be true if the suckers used in planting was infested with pests such as nematodes and beetles. The parasitic pressure increases year after year and the bunches becomes progressively smaller.

That's why one must plant with clean planting materials, ie suckers free from pest and diseases. One can plant tissue culture suckers or macropragated suckers from a nursery that follows the proper phytosanitary procedure.

If one must plant normal suckers, one must ensure that they are pared, ie the root and the outer part peeled as yam is peeled. Nematodes mostly reside in the roots and outer part of the corm. One must ensure that the paring isn't done in the new farm as one would be transferring the pest to the farm. After that, the suckers should be deeped into boiling water for exactly 30 seconds. The heat would kill any left over nematodes and beetles.

If clean planting materials are used, like Lesgupnigeria said they won't become smaller provided the plantation is well taken care of.


My reply to a post early this year.

phyllosilicate:
Two and a half months old , growing vigorously.

Impressive, macropropagation is the way forward.

Ndbc:
I think mine is both the Living and the Dead.

Through, but the dead part fraction of the soil nutrients.

But the bishop is also an Igbo man.

Ndbc:
Sorry about that... Try to create a cloud account or better still use Google drive or Dropbox, even Google photos is good for storing pictures and you can retrieve your files from any computer or mobile device.

Thanks for the advice.

aquila3:
may God help u

Ameen

janefarms2015:
Pls, we are waitting for the plantain own sir

My phone and computer was stollen. I lost the pictures I wanted to use , including more than a thousand eBooks.

But I have made a promise I must fulfil, Good willing.

Dadanoah:
plz how to compost chicken manure?

Same step Sir.

toastedbread:
agritech>
in making compost manure, here's what i was asked to do. is it ideal?


look for cow dung, put it in a small paint bucket, add water, stir it every 2 days and add water till it becomes dry and odourless. after that, dig a whole and pour the content inside. mix with soil before putting your vegetable seeds.

This works too.

Ndbc:
is it chicken droppings manure or kitchen scraps compost ?

Chicken droppings.

PapaBrowne:
I don't understand? He was a kidnapper because he could speak English? And was sleeping in the bush? That's not enough to conclude.


As per the herdsmen, we need a smarter approach to this issue oh. I'm thinking of starting up a Farmers Guild in Edo State where we would deploy smart solutions both to gather info on the herdsmen and also ward of potential attacks using technological apparatus like drones.

That would be great

Homoviator:
Thanks Sir for this thread. What is your take on sack farming, can it work effectively for Ugu farming?

Sack farming is an effective way of planting more plant in less space. Yes you can work with ugu.

Last week, I travelled to many farming communities in Edo state while working on a project. I was amazed by the lands under cassava cultivation. In some communities, every available land has been used to farm cassava, likewise all cassava sticks. Some farmers even destroyed thier plantain farms to have space to farm cassava. I kept asking myself if they have made the right decision.

Farmers mostly choose which commodity to plant base on the prices of the various commodities at the planting season. They plant the commodity that is selling for high price at the time of planting and avoid the one that is selling for low price. This method is very unreliable and insome casses, counterproductive.

During the time of harvest, there usually would be supply glut for the commodity that was previously expensive as majority of farmers cultivated it and the one that was cheap would be expensive as it is now scarce because very few farmers planted it.

Would this be the case for cassava next year? Only time would tell.

There are many agribusiness you could do with that sum, Plantain/banana if you have land, vegetables, snailery, etc. You have to take your time to learn the one you choose and avoid scammers.

There is no satisfactory definition of the word "vegetable ". In a popular sense, vegetables are those plants that are usually eaten fresh or cooked with the main course of a meal or used for dessert and salads.

Vegetables can be leafs such as green leaf, ugu; they can be fruits such a cocumber, watermelon and tomatoes; and they can also be roots such as carrot, beetroot and onions.

Early this year, the village caught a man they suspected to be a kidnapper. The young man who could speak fluent English said he has been sleeping in the bush for two weeks because the motor he boarded to Abuja from Lagos had an accident. Can you imagine.

He was handed over to Ehor police division.

Yesterday morning, I received a call from my workers that they were chased by armed robbers out of my farm.

The farm is located in Arua, close to Benin Auchi road. It appears they were operating in the road and they hid around my farm.

They said they were carrying sophisticated weapons. My workers said they were dressed like Fulani, but according to them they don't look Fulani. My workers are Taraba boys, so I trust their judgement.

I am scared, because I do go to check the farm alone.

Copy Lalasticala

So true. A major problem is the proliferation of fake agro-consultants who prey on ignorant minds. They claim people would make millions if they pay for their consultancy or buy their e-book or any other thing from them.

The truth is Agriculture is very very risky and shouldn't be treated with kid gloves. There are so many doors failure could come from, and there are lots of uncertainties. No matter what a farmer do and no matter how skilful he is, their is still a probability of failure. Successful farmers witness failures once a while.

All these, these "consultants" wouldn't say.

aquila3:
Hon agritech thank u so much for revealing another plant multiplication technique,more power to your elbow.thanks.

You are welcome.

[quote author=stockwise post=55714859][/quote]Be patient, when I am starting another one, I would create a thread.

By the way I see lots of threads advertising ""disease free", "Tissue cultured" and their claim are false.

My next thread would educate protective plantain farmers so that they wouldn't be deceived.

Where are the "Iron condemn" guys?

Yes you can. The spacing for oil palm is 9m by 9m. The plants are usually far apart, hence you can intercrop till they are about 4 years old when the canopy will cover. Plantain is one of the most common and also one of the most profitable intercrop for oil palm. You would plant in the oil palm interlines.

If you are planning on intercropping them perpetually, you would plant the oil palm in a 9m by 16m or a 9m by 20m spacing.

olurich01:
Please house help me, am at land site to purchase it, one acre to be precise but I can't get the accurate measurement of an acre,can anyone help? I have a 30m measurement tape

Hope this isn't too late?

1 acre = 43560 square feet.
1 acre = 4046.8564 square meters

In Nigeria a standard acre is measured 5 chain (330 feet) by 2 chain (132 feet). A measuring chain is 66 feet long.

If your tape has feet markings, measure 330 feet in length and 132 in breath.

If it's only marked in metre, measure 100m in length and 40 m 47 cm in breath.

Ensure the Land is squared.

Have you ever wonder why herbicides labels contains only the recommended liters to be applied per hectare and not the quantity you should put in your knapsack sprayer tank? This is because Mr A might spray an hectare with 20 tank loads of a sprayer, while Mr B might require just 10.

The reason might be because Mr B walks twice as fast as Mr A. So it would be wrong to put the same amount of herbicide in their tanks.

One shouldn't make arbitrary assumptions about the number of loads and the quantity of herbicides to mix with water during spraying. One must calibrate his knapsack sprayer so that one would know the number of tank loads that would be required to spray a field and the quantity of herbicides to put in each tank load. Doing so, one wouldn't spray too much herbicides, nor would one spray too little.

A Simple way to do this.

Materials required :
1. Measuring tape and pegs.
2. Your Knapsack sprayer
3. Stop watch
4. Measuring cylinder.

NB: calibration is best done in the field one intend to spray. One must calibrate the knapsack sprayer one would be using by oneself.

PROCEDURE:
Step 1. Mark out with pegs an area 10m by 10m (one hundredth an hectare).

Step 2. Fill two-third of your knapsack sprayer with water.

Step 3. Spray the marked out area using a comfortable pace and a moderate pumping pressure.

Step 4. Use a stop watch to record the time it took to spay the plot.

Step 5. Fill the sprayer once again and this time, spray into a measuring cylinder with a moderate pumping pressure the time it took to spray the marked out area. For example, if it took 50 seconds to spray the plot, spray into the measuring cylinder with a moderate pumping pressure for 50 seconds.

Step 6. Measure the volume of water in the cylinder.

CALCULATION

Application rate per hectare of the knapsack sprayer (for the person) = volume of water in the cylinder * 100.

For example if the volume of water measured is 2 liters, the application rate per hectare would be:
2 liters* 100= 200 liters per Ha.


This means the person would need 200 to spray an hectare. If it is a 20 liters capacity sprayer, the person would need 10 loads to spray an hectare.

If the recommended rate of application of the herbicide is 4 liters per hectare, he would have to divide 4 liters (4000 milliliters) by the 10 loads which is equivalent to 400 milliliters per sprayer tank.

farouk0403:
Government cannot grab the land without the consent of the farmers.

The industry and sugar plantation will also serve as an additional employment to the people of that community.

Which additional employment are you referring to? Can the Chinese firm employ the 150,000 people that would loose their source of livelihood?
Wouldn't it have been better if the government had provided technical assistance to boost the productivity of the farmers?

Who Chinese firm don epp before?

Baroba:
Someone will soon accuse you of forming oyibo, look at the filthy environs where those basket of tomatoes are kept, is to difficult for governments to cement that floor and put a basic shed out there.. Someone told me Nigerians must have an immunity second to none.. Two senators one month salary could easily provide a basic shed in these vegetable markets..This country sickens me.. Compare the filth where those tomatoes are been sold to this market stall, is this too difficult to implement??.. smdh

Aptly put.

Munzy14:
@agritech. very nice observation. its really alarming. CPC and NAFDAC are dead agency.

They really need to do much more.

On Monday, I bought indomie and egg takeaway from a restaurant in Benin City and it almost cost me my life. I developed acute stomach ache afterwards and the doctor said it was food poisoning. I was bedridden for 3 days.

Yesterday while surfing Nairaland, I came across this thread https://www.nairaland.com/3724201/nairalander-spotted-mile-12-market. What surprised me was that people were not concerned about the unhygienic environment the tomatoes were sold. This is a market that feed millions of Nigerians daily.

Recently the European Union banned Nigerian beans because of the high amount of pesticides they contain, these are the same beans we consume daily.

A large percentage of foods sold in Nigeria wouldn't be fit for selling in developed countries. I would list some ways we eat unhygienic food.

1. Evil middle men: These people can sell raw poison to make money. They use carbide to ripe fruits, they use formaldehyde used in preserving dead bodies to preserve fish and meat.

In Ikpoba hill market Benin City, palm oil traders would mix palm oil with a white chemical and recook it. One drum of palm oil would give them 3 drums. In the same market, people sell donkey meats. Restaurant owners buy them to sell as beef.

2. Little or no meat inspection: Before an animal is killed in an abattoir, Heath workers ought to inspect them to ensure they are fit for eating. Some animal disease are contagious to humans. But in our country, anything goes.

3.Incorrect Use of Pesticides by Farmers: Most Nigerian farmers can't calculate the exact pesticides to apply. In most cases they apply too much. This chemicals enter the crops and gets into the body of the consumers. Also there is usually a waiting period between the application of pesticides to when the crops would be fit again for eating. But in Nigeria, a farmer can apply insecticide to his vegetables in the morning and sell from the vegetables in the evening. They can also give Chicken drugs in the morning and sell from the chickens in the evening.

It is time for young agriprenuers to revolutionalise the Nigerian food sector so that healthy foods can be made available to the local consumers. I am glad one of our own jasper7 has started something ( Vegolas Farmers Market) I'm glad to have been part/still part of the project. It is not easy, but we would surely get there.

INDESTRUCTABLEX:
@op Step 6: Why not fresh manure? And in preparing your compost, how long do you wait?

Fresh manure would scorch the roots and kill them. You would have to wait for at a month.

To compost manure follow this step.

1. Get fresh manure
2. Heap it and add lots of water. Mix them with the water.
3. Cover with black polythene.
4. After two weeks, use a shovel to turn it, so the part under would now be on top.
5.add water again, then cover with the black polythene.
6. After another 2 weeks, it would be ready for use. It would not have any smell , just like charcoal smell.

You can use it to grow any vegetables with out fear of harming them.