Published on January 22, 2020Crop yields are the most important aspect of every farmer’s day since it will impact how profitable the farmer will be in a season. Learning how to maintain your crops is crucial for successful farming and improvement in technology has provided opportunities to farmers to improve their crop yield. Crop yields have steadily increased over time due to improvements in facilities that farmers get and new plantation methods. New ways are being introduced to maintain crops such as water well drilling and other artificial methods of providing water to crops so that crops can grow smoothly during the season without the risk of facing water scarcity. Some of the ways farmers can maintain their crops so that they can reap the benefits of their hard work are mentioned below.
Fertilize The Crops Instead of the Field:
Many strategies are being used to fertilize the crops and some of them incur more costs than the other techniques. A strategy that is commonly implemented is to fertilize the field so that they can raise the nutrients level in the soil to the required level for the crop to grow healthy. However, it is one of the costliest ways to fertilize the soil especially if your field already has low fertility. It can also hurt the growth of crops because different crops require a different level of nutrients to grow healthily and may get damaged if a particular nutrient is found excessive in the soil while may have stunted growth if there is a deficiency of a particular nutrient required for growth. You should carefully evaluate the nutrition requirements of different crops and apply fertilizers accordingly so that your crop remains healthy throughout the season.
Time Is Money:
If you analyze the common traits of all successful farmers, you will notice that they complete all their tasks within the deadlines assigned. Time is everything especially in the agriculture sector where crops start turning bad if a process is delayed even by hours and lose their value as time wears on. Every crop has a cycle within which it should be planted and harvested to get the maximum yield and a delay will not give you the desired results that you worked for throughout the year. Hence do everything possible within your budget to ensure timeliness when you are in the middle of the harvesting season so that you can maintain your crops and increase the crop yield when the time of harvest arrives.
Avail Early Order Facilities:
Many farmers normally complain that they have to buy everything at the retail price which increases the cost of production while having to sell at wholesale prices thus narrowing their profits. Farmers can influence this to some extent since many suppliers offer discounts for early order and early pay which can be an advantage to farmers since they will decrease their costs by paying their dues early. Many farmers even borrow money to take advantage of these discounts thus reducing their costs when having to pay interest. If you regularly purchase your fertilizers from a dealer, he might offer you discounts as a sign of good faith and strengthen their relationship with you.
Use Pesticides And Insecticides:
Pest attacks are a common issue that farmers face throughout the world and they are one of the primary reasons why countries must import food since their crops were destroyed. You should regularly use insecticides and pesticides to keep your crops free from both pests and harmful insects that reside under the soil. Fertilizers help to keep your crops healthy throughout the season and protect them from diseases which is necessary for the crops to be healthy and produce high levels of crop yield when they are being harvested. However, you must remember to add the required level of insecticides since the extra amount will damage the crop and cause environmental pollution.
Water Thoroughly:
Many farmers choose to water their crops daily by using sprinkles. Although you will be meeting the water requirement of the crop it will affect your crops having shorter roots. Problem with shorter roots is that they can be easily damaged by pests and will result in low crop yield while the opposite is true if the plant has deep roots. Hence watering the crops every few days thoroughly is necessary.
Conclusion:
To summarize, maintaining the crops is necessary if a farmer wants to have them harvested at the end of the season and meet their financial requirements. Although several methods can be used to improve the crop yield due to the advancement in technology you can also use conventional methods smartly to get your desired results.
