Pick and Write [Agricultural Word]👉#04||Harvest
Nothing gives joy than when a farmer realizes that harvest time is around the corner. The would be in high spirit and expectation that crops planted, would yield good produce. Even the holy Bible says that "they that sowet in tears, shall reap in joy." This is the situation of the farmers.
Farmers make a lot of efforts in producing the food that we eat. Just like me even though I produce small scale crops, I make a lot of efforts to ensure that I have good crops for harvesting. So indeed, farmers put a lot of efforts before harvesting their crops.
Two basic activities or functions farmers do before harvesting
Farmers carry out two basic functions before harvesting is done. These functions are:
- Pre-planting functions
- Post planting functions
The pre-planting functions include:
- Farm or land selection
- Bush clearing and burning
- Soil testing and seed selection
- Tilling or ridging
- Adding Manure/Fertilizer
The post-planting functions but before harvesting are:
- Irrigation
- Weeding
- Pruning
- Staking
- Controlling pests and diseases
You can now see that farmers put a lot of efforts in producing the food we eat.
What is harvesting?
Harvesting is a period of time in farming when farmers engage in the collection of matured crops from their farm. During harvesting, plants yields are uprooted, cut down, picked or pack the mature crops together. Farmers apply carefulness to avoid damaging the crops while harvesting them.
Before harvesting is done, farmers usually notice some signs that show them that the plants' crop is matured for harvesting. Some signs that crops are matured for harvesting includes:
- The size of the crop will have a full-sized shape.
- Their leaves and stems begin to dry off
- The seeds becomes hard
- The plant's seed or fruits will have a wholesome taste
As the harvesting continues, farmers begin to make some necessary crop separations based on purpose. They separate for the following reasons:
- Crops for sale
- Crops for storage for next planting season
- Crops for consumption
- Crops for gifts or charity
Harvesting could be done by mechanical or manual means.
By Mechanical Means: This is mostly used by large scale farmers. These class of farmers produce different varieties of crops and so could not cover the large portions of land by manual. They use ploughing and harvesting machines to make farming easier and saves time for them.
By Manual Means
This method is used by the peasant farmers. They make use of their hoes, shovels and other cutleris to do planting and harvesting..
Harvesting is done depending on the lifecycle of the plants. Some crops or plants may take three to four months to mature, others may take a year.
It is really interesting to be a farmer not minding how small it could be. I make use of some empty available spaces in my environment to cultivated different types of crops.
The beautiy of being a farmer is that, you don't have to get all your food sources from the market. Plant the crops you can produce as food and have them harvested at the right time. Smiles are often seen on the faces of farmers especially, when their crops have good yields during harvest period.
I invite the following persons to participate:
@mayjay
@peacemike
@ citysilver
