I have come across many articles that purportedly report that watermelon cultivation is very profitable with returns ranging from 50% to as high as 500% profit in 3 months. This has led me to some questions that I would like farmers with experience cultivating watermelon in the house to help me answer:

(1) Are the supposed returns accurate?

(2) If you could cultivate 100 hectares of watermelon in the southwest would you? (assuming irrigation is not a problem during dry season)

(3) Is there even a market for such a quantity?

(4) Why isn't everyone doing this?

@op........
answers on the way. stay calm.

Watermelon is highly profitable, what our people lack most is idea. Watermelon is consumed in millions now in Nigeria. believe me when I say that 100hectares of watermelon will not satisfy the South West alone. There are farmers in the North who are cultivating more than that

jasper7:
Watermelon is highly profitable, what our people lack most is idea. Watermelon is consumed in millions now in Nigeria. believe me when I say that 100hectares of watermelon will not satisfy the South West alone. There are farmers in the North who are cultivating more than that

tnx Boss

Thanks Jasper and Olamimo. When you planted watermelon what was the Return on your investment?

How did you sell your produce? 100 hectares seems like a very large quantity to be able to dispose don't you think?

Pls keep the responses coming

Please help, my trial watermelon already flowering and fruiting suddenly starts wilting. Kindly advise me on how to rescue these crops.

mayorteeny:
Thanks Jasper and Olamimo. When you planted watermelon what was the Return on your investment?

How did you sell your produce? 100 hectares seems like a very large quantity to be able to dispose don't you think?

Selling or marketing is a challenge for every producer. I think there is no ready market for any product. Yet, you will make your way if you do your homework timely.

These are intelligent questions.

It seems people make like N250,000 per acre after 4 months of hard toil and hand-in-mouth suspense not knowing whether disease will destroy the watermelon plants overnite. Agree with Op, for the effort and risk involved, the reward is somewhat low.

Probably not bad if you are a subsistence full time farmer and live in a village or small town and have modest aspirations. Or you want to do it part time, which appears to carry even more risk.


If you can put the same effort into one acre of tomato (assuming 4,000 plants per acre) and you achieve 3kg yield per plant, that should give you 12,000 kg of tomatoes. Now, if you can plan for your tomato plants to fruit between May and early June when wholesale price is around N250 per kg, you should end up with about N3 million. Even if you reduce that by N1m, you still end up with N2 million. This is still almost 10 times better than you get with watermelon!

One thing about watermelon though is its ubiquituos presence in almost every street shops these days. Same cant be said about cucumber...at least in my state. Not many seem to buy cucumber in my state, as most of the ones I see look stale and unfresh, perhaps due to lack of sale.

Based on my own careful assessment...pound for pound, the most profitable vegetable to plant in Southern Nigeria is tomato, PROVIDED:


1. You can get a decent yield - our hot & humid weather is not as good for tomatoes as the weather in the far northern states

2. You make sure your tomato arrives between May & June. Anything outside of these 2 months, you could be in big trouble.

DeLaRue:
It seems people make like N250,000 per acre after 4 months of hard toil and hand-in-mouth suspense not knowing whether disease will destroy the watermelon plants overnite. Agree with Op, for the effort and risk involved, the reward is somewhat low.

Probably not bad if you are a subsistence full time farmer and live in a village or small town and have modest aspirations. Or you want to do it part time, which appears to carry even more risk.


If you can put the same effort into one acre of tomato (assuming 4,000 plants per acre) and you achieve 3kg yield per plant, that should give you 12,000 kg of tomatoes. Now, if you can plan for your tomato plants to fruit between May and June when wholesale price is around N250 per kg, you should end up with about N3 million. Even if you reduce that by N1m, you still end up with N2 million. This is still almost 10 times better than you get with watermelon!

One thing about watermelon though is its ubiquituos presence in almost every street shops these days. Same cant be said about cucumber...at least in my state. Not many seem to buy cucumber in my state, as most of the ones I see look stale and unfresh, perhaps due to lack of sale.

Based on my own careful assessment...pound for pound, the most profitable vegetable to plant in Southern Nigeria is tomato, PROVIDED:


1. You can get a decent yield - our hot & humid weather is not as good for tomatoes as the weather in the far northern states

2. You make sure your tomato arrives between May & June. Anything outside of these 2 months, you could be in big trouble.

I concur.

Texcoco:
Because it is risky,highy technical and cumbersome..we planted watermelon once though it was profitable but we found out it was relatively useless at intrinsic value per weight than most other crop we had forwent..A 50 Kg basket of tomatoes is much more valuble than 50 kg watermelon load and it gets worse when you look at it per tonne..this precludes the constant dailiy vigil you have to undergo to get a good watermelon harvest which is so not like other profit crops....Tis not worth the stress, we rather plant cucumber.

are you saying cucumber is more profitable than watermellon.

DeLaRue:
It seems people make like N250,000 per acre after 4 months of hard toil and hand-in-mouth suspense not knowing whether disease will destroy the watermelon plants overnite. Agree with Op, for the effort and risk involved, the reward is somewhat low.

Probably not bad if you are a subsistence full time farmer and live in a village or small town and have modest aspirations. Or you want to do it part time, which appears to carry even more risk.


If you can put the same effort into one acre of tomato (assuming 4,000 plants per acre) and you achieve 3kg yield per plant, that should give you 12,000 kg of tomatoes. Now, if you can plan for your tomato plants to fruit between May and June when wholesale price is around N250 per kg, you should end up with about N3 million. Even if you reduce that by N1m, you still end up with N2 million. This is still almost 10 times better than you get with watermelon!

One thing about watermelon though is its ubiquituos presence in almost every street shops these days. Same cant be said about cucumber...at least in my state. Not many seem to buy cucumber in my state, as most of the ones I see look stale and unfresh, perhaps due to lack of sale.

Based on my own careful assessment...pound for pound, the most profitable vegetable to plant in Southern Nigeria is tomato, PROVIDED:


1. You can get a decent yield - our hot & humid weather is not as good for tomatoes as the weather in the far northern states

2. You make sure your tomato arrives between May & June. Anything outside of these 2 months, you could be in big trouble.

Pls, how many month does it take tomatoes to reach harvesting level?

knostbrown01:


Pls, how many month does it take tomatoes to reach harvesting level?

I think it takes 3 months plus..

Can tomato thrive in SE?

DeLaRue:
It seems people make like N250,000 per acre after 4 months of hard toil and hand-in-mouth suspense not knowing whether disease will destroy the watermelon plants overnite. Agree with Op, for the effort and risk involved, the reward is somewhat low.

Probably not bad if you are a subsistence full time farmer and live in a village or small town and have modest aspirations. Or you want to do it part time, which appears to carry even more risk.


If you can put the same effort into one acre of tomato (assuming 4,000 plants per acre) and you achieve 3kg yield per plant, that should give you 12,000 kg of tomatoes. Now, if you can plan for your tomato plants to fruit between May and June when wholesale price is around N250 per kg, you should end up with about N3 million. Even if you reduce that by N1m, you still end up with N2 million. This is still almost 10 times better than you get with watermelon!

One thing about watermelon though is its ubiquituos presence in almost every street shops these days. Same cant be said about cucumber...at least in my state. Not many seem to buy cucumber in my state, as most of the ones I see look stale and unfresh, perhaps due to lack of sale.

Based on my own careful assessment...pound for pound, the most profitable vegetable to plant in Southern Nigeria is tomato, PROVIDED:


1. You can get a decent yield - our hot & humid weather is not as good for tomatoes as the weather in the far northern states

2. You make sure your tomato arrives between May & June. Anything outside of these 2 months, you could be in big trouble.

Please, when is the best month to plant tomatoes in SS? Does it need more sunlight or rain?

Please anyone with an idea of herbicide that can be used on weeds in watermelon. Thanks.

Get your answers and rudimentary on tomato production on www.hybridveggies.com

knostbrown01:


Pls, how many month does it take tomatoes to reach harvesting level?

Get answer to your question through practical inclined articles with pictures on www.hybridveggies.com. By the way tomatoes requires considerable amount direct sunlight notwithstanding, it does well in wet season except that you spend some money on fungicide and pesticides to control diseases and pest combined with some best modern agronomic practices

Patini147:

Please, when is the best month to plant tomatoes in SS? Does it need more sunlight or rain?

So you are interested in tomato cultivation? You surely could make yourself a millionaire. Visit www.hybridveggies.com for rudimentary knowledge and much more

knostbrown01:


Pls, how many month does it take tomatoes to reach harvesting level?

wow beautiful, hope mine turns this way too...

faithglobal:


We are a water melon producing farm in Ibadan and we have commercial quantity of Water melon for sale. This are F1Kloss hybrid . Very big and juicy - Please see attached pictures

Please contact us on info@fglobalinks.com or on the following numbers for sale

Collins : 0807 641 7058

Sunday : 0805 540 3422 or 08080362698

Jide : 0818 443 5058

Hmm

Dear All,
We trust you are making plans to attend the fisrt ever Conference on Watermelons & Cucumber on 18th March, 2017 at The Centre for Management Development, CMD Rd, Magodo, Shangisha, Lagos.

The purpose of this conference is to bring together those involved in cucurbits so we can share information on all aspects of cucurbit research, development and production. We invite you to join us for this in-depth conference on exploring the ever-changing face of cucurbit research and development.

Those to attend
If you are interested in cucurbits such as cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, gourds, squash, watermelons or exotic species, you should attend this conference. We are expecting many individuals in attendance, comprised of academicians and students, commercial plant breeders and other scientists, growers and industry representatives

For details, pls call or whatsapp Adeyemi 07032115749

JOIN THE ONLINE WATERMELON TRAINING CLASS!!!

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However, there's big wealth in Watermelon and Cucumber farming. You can make good wealth from these businesses if you're ready to pay the price.

The next season for Watermelon planting is around the corner, especially if you don't have access to your own water. It's time to plan towards it starting with acquiring quality knowledge.

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Thank you

It takes experience to know. Don't be deceived. You will never make 3million from 1 acre tomatoes. Yes it's more profitable than watermelon, but is very perishable and stressful too.

Watermelon is needs little capital. We spent 70k on our farm and it returned 340. Not much but it's up to 300% return

Hi I got your mail notification. Unfortunately I could not read the mail.