Updates On March Gardenjournal: A Visit To Maize & Tomato Gardens; The Secret Of Surviving Under Adverse Weather Conditions

Maize plants are the most crops that wilt when the rain stops raining for the period of 3 weeks. The rainfall pattern has been erratic lately. The clouds form alright showing that there is going to be rain but it fails to honour this promises 🤣. The sun light has been very hot, we all panic as farmers for the early planters. I could say this is one of the challenging factors in the tropics here. We need well developed irrigation system that will support farmers all year round to be able to carry out farming activities.

Due to the rainfall factor, I haven't began sowing of my maize. Even though I am almost done with the land preparation with Asare as I updated you Guys here on our farm activities. I happened to pass by my friend's farm. Despite the break of the rain, his maizes are flourishing well. I was wondering if he applied different method of farming that has supported his maizes farm at this stage. The stands of the maizes are good, the leaves look greenish which is obviously a sign of photosynthesis taking place. From my experienced in maize production, not that my friend has applied new method of farming, but he makes sure the maizes are well treated. In terms of weed control perfectly done, little plant nutrients of NPK fertilizers has been applied. Spraying of insecticide has also been applied. So with the little precipitation ( dew) the maizes are likely to grow healthy.

I told a friend that planting maizes these days is different compare to the previous years. Due to the changes of the atmospheric weather conditions, farmers should be alert, calculating the best time of planting. If you decide to wait for the rainfall to rain heavily before sowing the seeds, you may be late in planting which would not help to get heavy production. Sometimes, early planting too can fail, in the sense that the sown maize show up low returns of percentage seed germination. If you don't take care, about 90% of the seeds would scorch through the hot sunshine. For instance if you sown your maize seeds this year 22nd March 2023, don't expect to sow next year 22nd March 2024. This is because weather changes also affect timely of planting. That's why I was talking about measuring the best time of planting.

Over here the landscape looks different. The nature of the soil is light red but well decomposed organic matter since most plant residues were left on the land to get rotten and mix with the soil. The planting spaces is normal 60cm × 60cm ( the length of matchet) as native maize planters use. Ideally, under the improved methods of farming, early maturing maizes seeds have been bred in order to get higher yields within the shortest possible time space. For instance when planting of "Aberihi, Okomasa and Obaatanpa," The planting distance can be 30cm×40cm with two seeds per each hole. In this case,the land must be plough and fertilized with recommended plant nutrients like poultry droppings or chemical fertilizers.

The timely planting can bring differences in growth of maize plants due to different weather conditions. The first planting had little rain to anchor the maize roots for fast growth. Even though the same landscaping, maizes being planted around the same area. For the second planting, the ground looks very hard. There will be no filling-in since the seeds have been sprouted very well. What we are waiting for is the early rain to support growth. Other than that, maizes at this early stage are susceptible to wilting and death, especially when the weather is very hot. The maizes are approaching the time of fertilizer application; that 2 weeks after planting. There is no enough water in the soil to dissolve the fertilizer, so the farmer is afraid to apply. One thing is that fertilizer is highly concentration and through high osmotic pressure, can draw most of the water content from the plants vacuoles to die very early. So the best is to wait for rainfall. If he fails to apply the NPK 23: 10: 5 ratio respectively or NPK 15 :15 : 15, then he can apply only Nitrogen fertilizer ( Urea ) to aid the cobs for higher grains production.

For this year, all my farming activities are far from home. I haven't planned doing intensive home garden. Only few tomato plants the I put in front of my house to see how they will grow. Even though we are gazing at the weather daily for rainfall, forgetting that the rain that would favour maize will not favour tomatoes. This time is good for tomatoes which are flowering. In most cases, excessive rainfall turn to blow away most of the flowers. I've seen that the flowers of these tomato plants are shooting. The little dew that fall every morning can support their fruiting too. We have to remember that plenty rainfall causes the fruits to crack open and easily perish. This is actually what I don't want to experience.

Our next schedule on our farm is to complete our preparation of the ground, follow by spraying of herbicide and then sowing of our maize. I would like to bring all updates concerning our farming. Thanks for your attention!