Successful cultivation of vegetables comes with Skill and years of experience. However, the skill/knowledge requires for cultivation at d...
Successful cultivation of
vegetables comes with Skill and years of experience. However, the skill/knowledge
requires for cultivation at different time of the year may not be the same. If
you are then thinking of cultivating tomato and many other vegetables during
wet season in an OPEN FIELD, there are things you must do to guarantee success.
This article is meant to shed light on such.
Staking: During wet season,
there is a need for you to stake your tomato, peppers, cucumber, beans and some
other veggies. The reason being that any prolong fruit contact with the soil
would
lead to rotten and waste. I guess you don’t want to lose part of your
expected income from the farm! Asides fruits getting rotten, they also lose
great market appeal due to de-coloration of the underside especially for cucumbers
and if that happen, then the money expected to be paid by the buyer would
surely reduce. Staking also increases ventilation on the farms and by extension
reduces disease incidence. Disease surely is your number one enemy and would
often fight tooth and nail with your crop to reduce their yield and by
extension your profit margin. Well staked crops enables you to carry out routine
activities on the farm with ease such as scouting, spraying, weeding and
harvesting. You may also read: A to Z on raising tomato nursery
Raised beds: Vegetables need
water but too much of water especially a situation where water does not go away
on time after heavy down pour would surely arm you crops. To ensure a well
drain farm, it is essential that you plant your crops on beds. Please, do not
make your beds across flood path rather along flood path.
Disease Control program: Can
you create a war or go to one without weapons? During raining season, it is
natural that you are going to have a lot of challenges with diseases notably
bacterial and fungi diseases. With that
mindset, it is advisable you play an offensive role not defensive. Do not wait
till you see diseases before application of preventive measure. Have a
pre-determined protocol handy and apply as at when due. There are preventives
measures and curatives as well, but once disease is allowed to occur, you have
certainly allowed potential yield reduction. Read more on this through our previous article on agro-chemical protocols.
Pest Control Program: Pest control
protocol goes with disease control as well but you may not need to apply
regularly as that of disease control applications. Depending on the crops in
question, you might need to wait to see before you apply pest control measure.
However, it is important to do adequate scouting every time because most pest
particularly insect aren’t easily visible to the naked eye from afar. Walk
through your farm and check the leaves under side; that is where most insects
hide. Do you know that weed is a pest? You would surely have must of them
during this period. Whether manually controlled or otherwise, you must do it
regularly before they developed into competing forces affecting your yield.
Spacing: You must give your
crops enough spacing to ensure adequate ventilation. During this period,
humidity is very high and it encourages disease infestation. You could decide
to plant in a single row on the bed or use zigzag planting pattern.
Timely Harvesting: If you don’t
harvest as at when due, then you might end up not getting anything to harvest
on your farm. High humidity often leads to among other things fruits getting
rotten. Some crops like tomato would surely have delayed ripening due to fall
in temperature; therefore, you might need to harvest and store to speed up the
ripening process or any other suitable methods that get the fruits off the
parents on time.
Alternative Sources of water: Are
these measures not meant for raining season; then why alternative water source?
You may be thinking this. Climate change is real and rainfall pattern can be
very irregular and unpredictable. Therefore, it is advisable you have an option
in mind should rain fails to fall for prolong period of time.
I hope you find this helpful at
least a bit. Thank you for reading and do check for our list of articles
that would surely make you a success in your farming enterprise.
COMMENTS