Welcome farmers to sorghum season starting next month.
The main season for Sorghum, Maize, and other key pulses crops is here. To you the farmer, farming of these crops is commercial and thus the expectation is always return on your investment.
In order to achieve the ultimate good yield and income from this farming ,it is important as a farmer to note various challenges that affect this farming and that we at Greenlife would wish to offer solution.
In all fields where we grow our crops, several grass and broadleaf weed species pose a great challenge in Land preparation before planting and in the fields during crop growth. The key to managing these weeds challenge is to ensure you start up your crop in clean fields, achieved by application of non selective herbicide such as Clampdown® 480 SL at 20 litres Per 20L of water to eradicate weeds before crop planting. This is done either before planting or immediately after planting. Another herbicide mainly used before planting is hurricane that eradicated all weeds though through contact mode of action. Its effective in that it takes like two days and result starts being manifested.
CLAMPDOWN® 480 SL is a non-selective systemic herbicide absorbed by the foliage, with rapid translocation throughout the plant that is used for the control of broadleaf weeds and grasses in non-cropped areas.
Nutritional challenges from poor soils lead to poor crop growth and poor yields because even with use of planting fertilizer D.A.P majority of the nutrients are lost (fixed) in the soils and thus unavailable to the crops. As a farmer you can be able to solve nutrient unavailability from the very beginning by ensuring application of planting fertilizer mixed with soil conditioners such as Humipower® which contains humic acids that help in unlocking important nutrients especially Phosphorus essential for root development, enhanced water and nutrient uptake for optimal growth. Its mixed with planting fertilizer at the rate of 1 Kg to 50Kg Fertilizer.
HUMIPOWER® is a water soluble soil amendment and blend that contains potassium, Iron EDDHA, humates and fulvic acid in granular form. It is used in agricultural, horticultural and field crops, landscaping lawns, pot plants as well as gardening. It is used both in the soil as an amendment and as fertilizer blend and supplies plants with organic matter that is readily available, easy to use and cost effective.
Sorghum crop which is a cereal crop and mainly grown in hot areas with sufficient rains like Tharaka nithi, will require to be planted before rains or immediately after rains. After germination, weed management is done by selective herbicide. In this case, we use Agromine® 860 SL to manage this challenge. Agromine clears all broad leaves but not grass family.
AGROMINE® 860 SL is a broad spectrum selective systemic herbicide for the control of post-emergence broadleaf weeds in maize, rice and wheat fields and non-cropped areas like lawns.
Crop failures across the country have been associated with rain failures or drought during the critical stages of crop growth. At Greenlife we offer affordable solution to manage plant stresses called optimizer, a seed weed extract containing nutritional elements applied as foliar feed at a rate of 20mls in 20 lts of water. This helps in promoting growth and yields, assists in management of stresses caused by poor rains. It is also very important in correcting chemical toxicities in plants. It can also be used to soak seeds to break seed dormancy.
In the next month article, focus will be on growth and crop protection of this crop.
