Maize farming business is one of the most common farming in the world. This is most likely because it is easy to do, manage and market.

Maize belongs to the grass family Gramineae. It is commonly known as corn in west Africa. It has the unique botanical name of Zea Mays. Maize is a cereal crop known for its energy-giving nature. It serves as food for human beings and livestock. Fortunately, it is one of the most recognized crops in west Africa.

Maize grows in such a way that its epicarp is fused with its mesocarp. This means it is one of those crops known as a caryopsis. A caryopsis is a crop that is epicarp and mesocarp and fused. This is the reason, the grain part of maize is stuck with the mesocarp.

So, how do you start maize farming business?

It is a very profitable agriculture market that delving into will provide a lot of adequate cash out later on. Furthermore, if you are a maize farmer and you can monitor it very well such that it becomes free from pests, diseases and any problem, you will have a big business to show off.

For this reason, we are giving you the step by step guide to becoming a successful maize farmer and even make an abundant difference in it within your first harvest. Below is the detailed guidelines for having your maize farming business.

Processes for Maize farming business

1. Land Preparation:

This means you have to make sure your land is free of bushes and debris. Clear the bushes manually with hoes and cutlasses or mechanically by harrowing, ploughing and ridging with machines. Also, bring all the debris together with a rake and pack them away with a wheelbarrow. Even burning the debris might be a better option somehow.

After this clearing, you can now move to make the ridges. To make these ridges, all you have to do is to use hoes and cutlasses to lose the soil and turn them around.

2. Choose Your Variety of Corn:

There are several varieties of maize. These varieties have slight differences and can be unique in the purposes they serve as well. The types of maize that we can see are dent maize, popcorn, flour corn, sweet corn, pod corn, flint corn and many others.

But before choosing this variety there are important factors to look out for. These factors will determine whether a certain variety will survive in a particular place or not. Note that all we will be telling you about those factors are just the average conditions and factors you can find in this maize. So, let’s delve into those factors:

Climatic and Soil Requirements: No matter the kind of maize, it will require a certain amount of rainfall per year which is between 75 cm and 150 cm. If the rainfall proportion of a place is more than 150 cm or below 75 cm, you should not think of growing maize there.

Also, the temperature required by maize is 26°C to 30°C. This is one of the reasons maize survives adequately in Africa. Not to forget the required method it propagation for this maize crop.

The soil for this maize must have high humus and organic contents so that it can thrive easily and give more yield as the final results.

Finally, the only method of propagation that maize grows from is the seeds. You can plant the seeds in holes dug with cutlass or mechanically with an easier machine-like anter. Make sure these holes are on the ridges you created.

3. Planting:

For a small farm, planting can be done with manual tools and traditional supplements. But if you have a very big hectare of land then you might want to go for the mechanical planters. However, even with all these, you are still not guaranteed the highest amount of output. But if you are going to make use of some important details that will be dropped below, you are sure for a very efficient yield later on.

a. Make sure your planting falls at the beginning of the rainy season mainly between March, April, July and August.

b. Also make sure you are careful about the seed rate of 25kg to 30kg per hectare of land. Just two or three seeds per hole are good.

c. The spacing is also important to avoid competition. This spacing would be 90cm by 30cm at one see per hole or 75cm by 25cm at two seeds per hole.