Hello Hive
Planting of different crops continues on our farms, and like I started with cassava a few days back, we have been working and planting other crops as well.
The usual grains we plant are rice, beans, sorghum, groundnut, and bambaranut, while the tubers we grow are potatoes, yams , cassava, and water yam. All of these crops are the foods we eat and are very important to us. On the other hand, we also grow veggies like okra, fluted pumpkins, African spinach, jute mallow, Lagos spinach , butter leaves, and water leaves. The veggies are the major ingredients for our soups.
It is usually intensive work to grow all these crops, as they all have different planting, weeding, and harvesting times. For some, we carry out a mixed cropping system to manage the available land space; hence, when weeding is done, it is basically for both plants like that.
Like I said, each crop has its planting season. For now, crops like corn, cassava, and millet are the ones on the lists for planting. This will be followed by sorghum, groundnuts, and bambaranuts.
While beans and rice come later in the months of June/July through August.
Just yesterday I was surprised to see my friends growing their rice grains already. It was then I realized that there is a new species of the grains in town. A lot of people eat rice, and it is one of the highly and commonly eaten staples here. The grains grown last season haven't been sufficient enough to feed her family; hence, they decided to plant the grains earlier this year.
It was at the point of seed purchase we learned about the new species of rice grain. The agricultural engineers are often consistently working on how to provide farmers with improved and quality seeds. Whenever there is a new seed in town, we get introduced to it and the benefits attached to growing the new species.
For the new rice grain seed, the growth period is just 3 months, and after that period, one can start preparing for harvest. They have engineered the grains to be a top-land rice such that it needs not be grown in the swamp before it can produce well. Most of the rice species we are familiar with are the swamp-growing rice, but here is a species that can grow on virtually any kind of land with moderate amounts of moisture.
In addition, the grains can also grow at the start of rainfalls beginning in the month of May. We need not wait until July/August before planting these. They are planted as soon as the rains commence, meaning that growing this isn't seasonal, and besides, they can be grown twice before the year runs out.
The ability for the species to be grown twice before the year runs out is one of the most pleasant benefits, as one can plant, harvest, and then replant a second time within a year. This will aid farmers like us to utilize the available land space for maximum productivity.
These are really some advantageous grains. While the grains are being planted and growing already, we wait to see if all these features spoken about play out well.
