Some Important things to learn and know about mixed cropping to avoid loss of farm investments

The weekend is upon us now which is usually the time employ to work on the farm since the weekdays are characterized office work/jobs as some of our team mates in the farm have other jobs they are doing. Everyone is trying to engage in multiple jobs in other to make ends meet. Weekdays are for office work while weekends are for farm when people are free from the the white collar work.

In preparation for today farm work we had gone to purchase more cassava stems yesterday evening that will be planted in our own portions of the farms. We have planned to engage in mixed cropping planting at least 4 different crops but by the help of some Agriculture engineers we got some advice against planting numerous crops.

In the end it might not yield much as the crops will be all competing for nutrient, space and there might be risk of transfer of pestilence among these crops.

We were more concerned about the lots of money we have spent on the mechanized cultivation and leasing of the land, how to recover these monies and also make some profits from the farm. This is the major reason we embarked on mixed cropping but this approach have to be followed in the right order or else we risk, that is one of the important things we need to learn and avoid in mixed cropping.

Another important issues to learn about mixed cropping is that anyone who has the intention to practice such must learn about proper spacing for each of the mixed crops to avoid competition among the planted crops.

For instance if you have it in mind to plant Groundnut corn and cassava.
How to go about this is fo first plant the groundnut, let it grow for about two month before planting corn. Equally allow the corn for about two month spacing before eventually planting the cassava with a proper spacing between the three crops. By doing it this way one crop will have developed to a certain level before another is introduced. It will reduce the competition for nutrient or the risk of loss that will happen when one crops overshadows the other.

Here is portion of our farm in a location where cassava has overshadowed corn. A total loss of the corn can be seen here as it will be producing no fruits at all.

A tasseling corn with a stunted growth and yellowish color will yield nothing. It is a total loss here for this portion of our farm.
Although the cassava will yeild well if it is hence left alone since it has earlier choked the corns to destruction.

Another portion of the corns that are trying to thrive well caught some infections affecting the leaves.

Including some noctoral insects eating up the upcoming tassels. All of these are some of the learnings and discoveries we have made on this farming adventure. It is very much advisble for both local and standard farmers to understand this while practicing a mixed farming system.

I hope that more people will find this blog and content useful for their farming adventure. It reduced loss and ensure maximum profit if we want to engage in commercial farming that is really capital intensive.