HELLO HIVE
Maize is an essential plant to me with important food purposes like making pap and the use of maize powder to cook different local meals, you can easily plant maize on a large because it is not as stressful as rice and other crops I don't have a large farm for this purpose but I do have small farms here and there that accumulates into a large farm enough to provide what I need as food for at least a year, sometimes I do plant maize twice a year and other years it is just once a year depending on the rain and how much time I can spear to farm it. The rain which is an essential part of it can either send the work two steps forward or backwards.
There have been recent farming seasons where the maize crop has experienced significant damage that has led to a noticeable drop in yield and the damages have been majorly due to chemical misapplication, pests, disease and prolonged dry weather.
The roles of chemicals in modern farming
- Chemicals have hugely evolved the way we farm in so many ways, chemicals like herbicides have hugely taken off the stress of weeding our farms, fertilizers have improved the overall soil nutrients and crop out while pesticides have made it easy to store our grains and tubers for longer period by preventing pest from getting to it. Chemicals in modern farming have enhanced crop yields by giving essential nutrients and protecting the plant from diseases and pests.
- But chemicals can also have adverse effects on plants.
The incident that led to this post
Since we started using herbicides on our maize plant while the maize was still in the growth process unlike when weeding was the norm my dad and I have had our share of successes and disappointments. My dad used chemicals to unintentionally destroy the yam, maize and rice that he had planted during the first trial but over the last two years everything has improved and he has certainly gotten a grip on it this year I gave it a try and the result wasn't pleasing at all though am happy it was only a very small part of the land the major reason been the poor timing rather than error in mixing or incorrect dosage since it was my dad who took care of those aspect, the dry weather made the situation worst due to the lack of moisture which likely prevented the chemical from being properly absorbed or diluted, leading to it frying the maize plant.
How impactful was this on the plants?
The impact is huge because I don't see any of these maize plants picking up anymore even if the rain starts now or a tank of water is poured all over the farm the maize plants system looks completely dry but I have learnt a lot from this, especially from the concept of weather and I will do better next time.
There has to be a careful usage of chemicals and a brilliant understanding of the consequences of not adapting to environmental changes to prevent any future occurrence.