LoFarms:


Stupid cunt Liftitupo bros lift up your sense and read

Elpinto:
Hi, good initiative. I have some questions though;
Where in Ogun state is your farm located?
How much did you pay to secure it? Lease or Buy?
How much are you paying for these mechanical operations (like the ploughing) on your land?
Which type(s) of cucumber seeds do you intend to plant?

okoroemeka:
the ₦500k budget I made is based on one acre,it's obvious it can't push 1 hectare,if you quickly look at some figures you will realize why,(1)2 water pumps/hoses/fuel ₦170,000,(2)bamboo 400-500 lengths ×₦100=₦40,000, staking net ₦3500 per roll(100m×2m) ×50 rolls=₦175,000 (3)seed 600-800 grams=₦128,000@₦8000 per 50 gram,as you can see this few estimates is almost up to ₦500k,many things are not included like land preparation,manure, fertilizer,chemicals,labour,etc, even if ordinary nylon ropes is used it will need almost 20-25 bags for 1 hectare @₦4000 per bag=₦80-100,000k just ropes

healthserve:
Cucumber farming is not simplistic for a first time farmer. I think LoFarms should have added a disclaimer to his posts.

The slightest of errors can wipe out entire produce. If you're an intending farmer and want to cultivate cucumber start on.

A small land size and take stock of your farming activities so you can elarn from a first experience.


I choose to state emphatically that there are crops with less attention to detail should be too priority on the mind of a first time farmer not a highly sensitive crop like cucumber


My two cents

abbeynism:
What would you suggest for a first timer intending farmer like me.

I am planning to plant cucumber on my 1 plot soon.

LoFarms:
Happy New Year, sorry we couldn't upload any update because of how busy we were.

Let me jump straight to it.


Land preparation is something that has to be taken into consideration, especially labour.

Labour Labour Labour. No matter how much you've to pay, make sure you get labour that has signed a contract, these guys jump ships and change minds as they wish.

The land we used hasn't been farmed on for almost four years, it's best to say that it's a virgin land.

We used mechanized ploughing, twice and we faced the challenge of hard soil. We ploughed the first time when it rained and the second time a fee days after the last rain for 2019 and the soil later turned out to be very very hard. In fact I feared nothing was going to germinate.

We solved this by spending more money of fuel and pumping water, oh! I remember we planned using hose to irrigate, well after setting it up , exactly what Okoroemeka said watering with hose is a back breaker, we needed to improvise immediately and got water sprinklers. This helped with making the soil soft again. We watered everyday for at least 3 hours made the land feel like it was in the middle of the raining season.
I won't make you feel this was easy cos it wasn't. Cost wise we should have gone fro drip irrigation. Seeing what my neighboring farmer had installed he had little problem with labour and with irrigation , so in the next project we will be using Drip Tapes and drop the sprinklers.

Moving forward, we have a spacing of 20cm per hole and 1m per line.
1 seed per hole but some holes had 2 or more seeds.

Another mistake , it's best for my land would type to plant in ridges. Planting in holes is painstaking and more expensive. We had to dig almost 20,000 holes and pour manure in each hole. The labourers complained like crazy.

One advice if you can automate your farm
Irrigation
Land preparation
Mulching film
Please do it, don't rely in labourers.

We finally planted on the 29th and 30th and later planted on the 4th and 5th then disaster struck
One very strange animal or bird but I suspect it's a mammal ate the seeds. This animal ate the inside of the seed and left the shell. From my calculation it ate 6000 seeds. Almost half of the farm. We had to improvise again, buy seeds , used tyre and Gallo for nursery guraded with boko haram net. We are in the process of transplanting.

So we are counting days

Another challenge most cucumber farmers will face with Murano is
Pollination during dey season
Manual staking

In summary. Know your soil, get labour that has sigbed a contract, automate your farm, drip irrigation, weed control, trellis (staking) ,ploughing , ridging and you'll be fine.


Let me stop here.

LoFarms:

I need dry manure

Gabson247:
[color=#006600][/color]
It's very dry, gotten from brooding pen
My location is going state
Chat me on 08132555464

healthserve:
LoFarms did you mention getting ready market before even production is critical as produce can rotten fast after harvest hence a marketing outlet should and must be in place to avoid loss to spoilage

LoFarms:


Market has been ready before we acquired the land ... mile 12and some other traders along the way.

FMCASH:


It's not all barking dogs you need to stone, this trend should have been an edge for you assuming you overlook some comments.

I wonder how mod put this trend on front page when everything is still hot.

The time and energy you spent on nairaland responding to all comment, if you use it to concentrate more on your farm it will goes a long way.

Employ people to weed for you as soon as possible please

healthserve:



..I meant to new entrants. I've seen many new cucumber farmers weep in the past from not knowing where to go and how to market their produce

LoFarms:


People make that mistake a lot. Been a businessman for more than a decade before going into farming the first thing I looked into was the demand(market) tidied it knew the variety they wanted interviewed some traders who sell the commodity in my area went to my local market and all. I made sure I was thorough with that and many thanks to Okoroemeka’s blog it helped a lot

Amanda4life:
Hunger has turned people to farmers

abilityC:
Without farmers can you eat?

Amanda4life:
Hunger has turned people to farmers

LoFarms:


Going state? I don’t follow.

healthserve:
What do you make of such a lengthy gab khia EasternPrince come and laugh

EasternPrince:



He's a smart piece of work and you will do well to leave him alone. He will get tired. Even machines do.

On your part you need to lay low a bit and give him nothing to point at.

Take care.

FMCASH:

Paraquat for a first timer.
Collosal loss niyen
It's farm close to owode egba lofarm

FarmTech:
About gynecious cukes, I got this:

"The female flowers of gynoecious varieties still need to be fertilized with pollen from male flowers, so a certain percentage of monoecious plants need to be planted along with the gynoecious plants to serve as pollenizers. Most seed companies provide cucumber seed blends that contain 85% to 90% gynoecious seed and 10% to 15% monoecious seed. These blends ensure that the optimal proportion of male to female flowers are present in a planting, resulting in good pollination levels and high fruit yields." - https://seminis-us.com/resources/agronomic-spotlights/understanding-flowering-habits-cucumbers/

And this:
"Gynoecious varieties are special hybrids which produce predominantly female flowers. Seeds of a standard monoecious variety are commonly included in the seed packet to ensure adequate pollination. (The seeds of the monoecious variety may be dyed or placed in a separate packet.) Gynoecious varieties often outproduce standard varieties when a pollenizer (monoecious variety) is present." - https://hortnews.extension.iastate.edu/faq/how-do-gynoecious-cucumber-varieties-differ-other-varieties.

Liftitupo:


This was the same tough debate we had with pistotita. He smiled and told us to try them out on a small scale. I know you are not a cucumber or tomato farmer but just checking articles here and there. Maybe to discredit him. We went on pilot, farmers in Jos had entirely different result and flowering was better than in Ibadan and Enugu Read his answer in his link again. This is a topic we discussed very well. Check the pictures from technisem and eastwest he added. Did you read where caution on heat bringing out more males? Better you talk to East West technicians and ask if monalisa needs it. They will even tell you greengo does not really need it. How to mix is a complete different story to maximize profit. Please, use information on internet to your advantage because most of the articles you read do not weather like West Africa. I wish I know how to explain like pistotita. Can you read more people coming out to talk about him? Pisto is too straight forward. I hope you do the right thing he pointed to you because you are a mod. I wrote that you sound like a good guy, but it is looking like you are trying hard to discredit him. There are strong evidences he has posted but you are silent.

aquadude15:

pls I noticed most of my cucumber fruit are bending and they are the first fruit I am going to harvest.
pls what is the solution

FarmTech:
About gynecious cukes, I got this:

"The female flowers of gynoecious varieties still need to be fertilized with pollen from male flowers, so a certain percentage of monoecious plants need to be planted along with the gynoecious plants to serve as pollenizers. Most seed companies provide cucumber seed blends that contain 85% to 90% gynoecious seed and 10% to 15% monoecious seed. These blends ensure that the optimal proportion of male to female flowers are present in a planting, resulting in good pollination levels and high fruit yields." - https://seminis-us.com/resources/agronomic-spotlights/understanding-flowering-habits-cucumbers/

And this:
"Gynoecious varieties are special hybrids which produce predominantly female flowers. Seeds of a standard monoecious variety are commonly included in the seed packet to ensure adequate pollination. (The seeds of the monoecious variety may be dyed or placed in a separate packet.) Gynoecious varieties often outproduce standard varieties when a pollenizer (monoecious variety) is present." - https://hortnews.extension.iastate.edu/faq/how-do-gynoecious-cucumber-varieties-differ-other-varieties.

Psalmy2cute:

If the fruit are bent.. its probably stress from lack of water ... how often do you irrigate your cucumber farm??

aquadude15:

I irrigate manually every morning sir

aquadude15:

I irrigate manually every morning sir