TENDAIISHE NYAMUKUNDA
Farmers should now concentrate on planting short season crops as the season is now late, Agritex principal agronomist, Sibongile Chikore has advised farmers.
She said crops such as soya beans, beans, sunflowers cowpeas and many others were now ideal.
“Planting of late crop is in the progress. The late crops are those plants which have a short growing period like the cowpeas , sunflower and sweet potatoes. Those are the ones we are encouraging farmers to plant, “said Chikore.
She added:”In terms of soya beans we are at 85 % and we are estimating that we have planted 50 000 hectares of soya beans. ”
Chikore also said that 37.387 hectare have already planted out of the total targeted hectares of 160, 000 hectares which is 23% of the planted hectares.
“Sunflower we are still at 23%, but as most of you know sunflower is one of the late crops, so we are anticipating that more farmers will plant sunflower and we will be able to reach our target, ” said Chikore.
She said, “This the best time to plant sugar beans. Sugar beans requires 2 months or less depending on the variety , so this is the best time to plant because if you had planted in December , if there was a lot of rainfall and sugar beans is flowering, all flowers would have been swiped away by rain. ”
According to Dr Shadreck Makombe , president of the Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union, crops like beans, cowpeas and sweet potatoes by nature are short season plants which do not needs a lot of water to grow and are resistant to dry seasons.
“As for crops like cowpeas, soya beans and beans by nature are short season and they do not need a lot of water, hence the encouragement for them to be planted especially in this short season where rainfall were experienced and are experienced to be falling for a short duration so that the best part form other crops to be planted because they are also resistant in dry conditions making them the best crops to go for, “said Makombe.
He added :”Given the situation and our environment and this El-nino we are convinced that the way to go is for those crops that dry land resistant “.
Edward Dune, vice president of Tobacco Farmers Union weighed in saying that farmers need to take good maintenance of the short season crops because they are prone to attack from pest and diseases.
“Late season crops are normally prone to attack by various pests and diseases. Farmers need to be acquainted with the various symptoms of such attacks from these anomalies in any case . Government has machinery in terms of human resources to curb such occurrences , “said Dune.
