My Commercial Cucumber Farming Experience

I have farmed cucumber twice. I started at a very small scale and then scaled up a little. This enabled me to learn the ropes and keep loss to a minimum. My first trial was a near disaster as diseases nearly wipe out everything. Second trial was better as I made a reasonable net profit (1.33 ROI but without including cost of fixed assets like knapsack sprayer, boot etc, ROI was about 2). Below are some of the things I learnt:

Update: For recent info on cucumber farming, read: My Cucumber Farm Journey 2023

1. Humid Condition Attracts Diseases: I planted when the rainy season started. At the peak of rainfall when rain fall almost daily, disease struck. I suspects downy mildew. This disease first appear as yellow spots on the leaves which later turn brown. It expands and kill the whole leaves and the plants soon die.
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How to Spend Less Time and Money on Weeding

If you have ever tried farming on a plot of land (120x60ft) or more, you’ll agree with me that weeding with hoes is no easy task. It is back- and waist-breaking! If you decide to employ laborers to help you out, they’ll charge you about N7000 per plot (depending on your location). This shows how important it is for you to find ways of cutting weeding cost. And that’s exactly what you’re about to learn.

So how do we go about this? The method we’re going to look at is called the stale seedbed method. Here is how it works. Make your seedbed, ridges or hills (I like working with ridges because it makes operations like fertilizer application or spraying insecticides and fungicides easier). After making your ridges, don’t sow your seeds or transplant yet. Allow about 2 weeks to pass to allow the first flush of weeds to grow.
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