Lucrative Business For The Week: How To Cultivate Hybrid Maize In Nigeria

We are in the season of planting and Nigerians will be thinking of what to plant at this season and the steps to follow to ease their stress in the process of achieving a profitable outcome.

Everyone wants to make money at one time or the other and to achieve it, you have to think of a lucrative business and take advantage of the situation around you to achieve a profitable business.

Today on ‘Lucrative Business For The Week’ we will be discussing how to cultivate hybrid maize in Nigeria.

Maize is one of the most useful cereal crops in West Africa, and food made out of maize provides the body with nutrients like carbohydrate, protein, iron, vitamin B, and minerals.

Now let’s get to the business of the day, maize cultivation is far easier than rice farming and needs less capital to start your farm, 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.

Here are the steps to follow if you want to be one of the Nigerians who will make their income from maize farming this year.

1. Acquire A Land

To have a stress free farming you need a well-drained fertile loamy soil for maize farming, if you can lay your hands on forest land it will be very good for your crop because the nutrients in the soil will still be intact, this is due to the decomposed leaves from the forest trees.

Clear the land using manual labourers or mechanical means, make sure that all the weeds are removed, while you get the soil loosed and prepared for farming.

2. Get Maize Variety

For early planting during the rainy season, look for these types of maize:

Yellow Open Pollinated Varieties. Western Yellow 1: TZSR-Y-1 (Streak Resistant)

DMR-LSRY (Downy Mildew & Streak Resistant).

Yellow Hybrids Varieties: 8425-8; 8329-15
White, Open Pollinated Varieties: TZPB (FARZ 27); TZB (FARZ 34); TZSR-W-1;

ZPBSR (Streak Resistant); DMR-LSRW (Downy Mildew & Streak Resistant).

DMR-LSRW (Downy Mildew & Streak Resistant).

White Hybrids: 8321-18; 9022-19; (Striga Resistant).

If you are planting late, look for these types of maize:

Yellow Open Pollinated Varieties: TZESR-Y; DMR-ESRY (Downy Mildew and
Streak Resistant).

White, Open Pollinated Varieties: TZESR-W; DMR-ESRW (Downy Mildew and Streak Resistant)

POPCORN: White Pop: Yellow composite.

You can get these varieties of seed from your state agriculture departments or anywhere they sell agricultural produce, you can also ask around.

3. Planting:

Plant your maize as soon as the land is ready to allow the maize grow ahead of weeds that will come out during the farming period, daily in planting will expose the maize to competition with the weeds.

Planting is best by March ending to the first week of April, sometimes early May, depending on how early the rain starts and the intensity.

When you want to plant give space of about one foot to one and a half feet from and between each plant.

4. Apply Fertilizer and Control The Weeds:

If the acquired land is fertile you may not need fertilizer, however, the application of fertilizer will aid the crop to yield more.

For Open Pollinated Maize Varieties:

Forest fallows 10 years or more. Apply 200 kg (4 bags) of NPK 25-10-10 per hectare at planting as the band or broadcast application.
For Hybrids Corn Varieties:

For every high yields maize, you’ll need to apply 600 kg (12 bags) of 25:10:10 per hectare in two splits that are, at planting (200 kg) and 5 to 6 weeks after planting.

Manual Weeding:

start the first weeding 15 days after planting and not later than 25 days or as soon as you begin to notice weeds on your farmland.

After all the planting process and fertilizer application, the last process is for you to wait for the corn to mature, then you harvest and decide what you want to use your maize for.

Here is where we will end the lucrative business for the week, hoping to see you next week.