HOW TO CULTIVATE MAIZE IN NIGERIA

How to Cultivate Maize in Nigeria

I’m going to be writing more on Farming since we are in the season of planting, let’s see how we could take advantage of this period to make money through farming. And maize cultivation presents viable opportunity for would be maize Farmer to make money in Nigeria this season.

Maize, also known as Corn is one of the most useful cereal crop in West Africa, foods made out of maize is very nutritious as It is an important source of carbohydrate, protein, iron, vitamin B, and minerals, and is known to digest very quickly. Most Africans tend to consume maize mainly as a starchy base in a wide variety of porridge, pastes, grits, and beer. The Green freshly harvested maize cob is eaten either roasted or boiled.

In many Western countries like the USA, maize is used mainly for industrial products processing and for manufacturing of animal feeds or as straight Livestock feeds. Whichever way it is used, maize is the most important cereal crop in Africa with rice and wheat which make up the three most important cereal crops in the world.

Maize is very simple to cultivate, easy to maintain, far less delicate that Rice, and take less capital too. Like rice, maize matures very fast, within 2-5 months of planting the crop is ready for harvest, depending on which stage you want to harvest your crop.

Maize grows in a wider range of soil type than rice, almost every part of Nigeria can grow maize on their soil. With the use of Hybrid Maize and mechanized system of farming, yield of maize can reach up to 10.2 tonnes per hectare, with traditional African type of cultivation, production is 2.1 tonnes per hectare which isn’t too bad anyway.

Here are simple things you need to put in place to cultivate, harvest, and sell maize in your area this season; and if possible, cultivate and sell in large quantity to make more money.

1. Get Spacious Land –

Like I said before, maize can be grown in all lands in Nigeria but it performs better in a well drained fertile loamy soil. Look for land that is predominantly loam, if you can lay your hands on forest land, that will be very good because I’ve personally seen corn perform far better without fertilizer on forest lands. The reason may be due to the decomposed leaves from the forest trees.

Clear the land using manual laborers or mechanical means, the bottom line is to remove the weeds and keep the soil loose for proper maize seedbed and ensure the preservation of the topsoil .

Make sure you plant your maize seed as soon as you clear the soil to allow the maize grow ahead of weeds. Delay in planting will expose the hybrids maize to competition with the weeds.

1. Get Improved Maize Variety –
   If possible, look for Recommended Verities of maize to improve your yield.

This are six different type of maize/corn namely :

1.flint corn :corn is maize variant with a hard outer layer and low water content.

2.Dent corn :is a maize variety with high soft starch content. Dent corn is commercially grown for grain and fodder.

3.Pod corn:also known as wild maize is known best as the progenitor for corn, that is the earliest variety of corn or the variety that corn originated from

4.popcorn:is a variety of corn that expands and puffs when heated. When heated the kernel reptures and allows the content of the kernel to expand, cool and finally set into popcorn.

5.flour corn: is a variety of corn with a soft endosperm used primarily to make corn flour.

6.sweet corn : is variety corn that has high sugar content and is mostly considered a Vegetable. Sweet corn is best when eaten fresh or canned to preserve its freshness.

The Economic Important of Maize

1. Maize is a good source of vitamins, minerals and dietary fiber. Especially since a lot of small scale farmers are involved in maize farming, it makes it an affordable source of vitamins and minerals for people living in rural areas

2. Maize farming can be processed into a number of products which creates an processors and distributors.
   Some of the products that can be gotten from maize : corn starch
   Oil
   Glue
   Ethanol
   Click this link to know more about maize. https://www.farmcrowdy.com/maize-economic-importance-nigeria/