Hi friends, it's another beautiful day and I bring you good tiddings from this part of the world. Greetings from .
One of the unique features of Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria where I come is the cultivation of oil palm trees and this has helped in the development of the area over time. Oil palm production/cultivation is very unique and since it's part of our culture every family is expected to own a certain number of oil palm plantation to be considered rich or a member of the social class in the society.
Prior to my birth my dad has been homesteading and nurturing oil palm seedlings both for domestic and commercial cultivation. I always imagine how my dad understood which oil palm seed was right for cultivation and which one is not good for cultivation. But I now realize that consistency is key to everything.
For the past 2 to 3 months I've been nurturing some oil palm seedlings in our backyard at home. The first we did was to look for some polythene bags that was used to plant the palm fruit seedlings. The next thing is to get oil soil into the bags and test the soil to know if they're favorable to plant the oil palm seedlings. We usually water the seed on a daily basis to help them grow effectively.
Once the oil palm tree starts germinating, we either sell some of the germinated seeds to farmers around you or we plant them in our cleared plantation. This particular year, we've already cleared a very large hectares of farmland to cultivate our new oil palm seedlings.
There are some times that we lost over 50% of our nurtured oil palm seedlings to flood that ravaged our community, my dad and I managed to rescue the other 50%. Managing a homestead in terms of oil palm seedlings cultivation as well as the oil palm production is very demanding but also beneficial to us. My dad used the money from the cultivation of oil palm seedlings to send myself and my siblings to college.
Finally, I'll say that oil palm seedling cultivation is more difficult than managing an oil palm plantation. This is because you need more care for the seedlings than the general plantation. Cultivating oil palm is already part of me and has helped me to earn some money for myself.
Thank you.
Wish you well in all your endeavors