My Farm Diary: Week Three

Ring weeding of water melon

The third out of Eight scheduled weeks of farm for this semester is gone within the twinkle of an eye and seriously, I've been so favoured and I've learnt a lot. What happened in the third week?

My group was posted to the agro forestry and farm management unit. On Monday, we participated in the marketing of maize to market retailers and on the following days, we worked at the Agroforestry unit. On Tuesday and Wednesday, we were made to work on the watermelon farm where we did ring weeding I.e weeding about 2m round a plant. This is done when systemic herbicides are to be used for a farm with young plants. You weed a circle round the plant so that during the course of spraying, the sprayer doesn't have to go so close to the plant such that the herbicide might have contact with the plant and thus affect it.

On Tuesday, while others were weeding, Blessing(a group member) and I were scheduled to apply poultry manure on vegetables; Amaranthus and Cochorus olitorus locally known as ewedu. On Wednesday, we worked with the weeding team, on Thursday, we were allocated personal plots like the first week but this time around, we planted maize and joyfully, I can proudly say the maize I planted have emerged! And I know God will keep them till harvesting and I'm going to harvest a lot!

We planted using 3-4seeds per hole with a spacing of 75cm by 50cm which was the recommendation by our supervisors.

On Friday, we went back to our unit where we also planted maize but this time with the spacing of 75cm by 25cm and we applied NPK 15:15:15 fertilizer. Just when we finished and we were waiting for a lecture, the lecturer came only to inform us that she's not teaching us but we're having a demonstration on our tomatoes plot. At this juncture, we all looked at her shocked and jaw dropping.

See ya next week for a summary of this week's farm experience!  Love ya!

My Farm Diary: Week Three: Day One

So  far so good, yesterday was so much fun compared to other days of duty on farm. We worked at the farm management unit where we acted in the capacity of farm managers and sold maize to women who were intend to further extend the sales to the final consumers. The day started with the unit head giving us an overview of what it involves to being a farm manager hence giving us a first hand practical experience on the field. Then, we waited for the women harvesting who happen to also be the retailers and when they were done, we charger each person per quantity and size of maize harvested.

The most fun part was how the women were negotiating the prices. We charged the third woman a sum of #1200, she insisted on paying #600 which looked like a ridiculous bargain to me. We left her to meet about 40 other women only to come back to collect #650. A woman was charged #500, she offered to pay #400 but eventually paid #320 and I was wowed but you know what? That's what a typical Nigerian looks like. Women bargain ridiculously even when they collected money worthwhile from their husbands.