Hello Guys! Since I harvested and stored my dried maize in a room, I haven't gave any updates of how the dried maize is faring. This is from the fact that I've been very busy with my second season maize I've planted.
It was rather unfortunate to see my maize being destroying by termites from no where. From my studies, I would have applied some insecticides on the floor to prevent the invasion of termites, since that pest and weevils are the main cause of destruction of maize grains on the field. I would have applied DDT on the ground, in the middle of the heaped maize and finally on the top. I considered that, the place I kept the maize is a floor so nothing of such pest could harbour the dried maize. Only to find that, these termites have engulfed the maize and they were all over the place. Most of the smaller maizes have already being destroyed. I was lucky to have seen this situation earlier. This made me decided to thresh and sell the maize and keep few that I would consume till the second season maize come.
In the morning,my friend and I decided to convey all the maize from the room where they were kept to plain ground which has been laid with mat to prevent dust from touching the grains. It was really tedious work but I had to try carrying them gradually with a basin to heap them on the mat laid. While my friend was picking them from the floor into the basin. From where the maize were kept to the place that was heaped was just 3mins walk distance. This was to enable the Thresher machine get some good place to thresh the grains without stress.
We began the whore work around 6:30am. By the time it was 8:30am, I had finished conveying from the room which they were kept to heap on the mat. While waiting for the thresher, we began to pick the odds from the heaped ones. The maize grains look very healthy and nice for consumption.
The Thresher finally arrived when it was 9:00am. We helped him to position the machine at vantage point and laid some mat so that the maize wouldn't spread far distance. Another work began by conveying the heaped maize into the Thresher machine for it to thresh. This was really another tedious work, since it needed to be done quickly.
in view
We got many helpers from the neighbourhood house and the house we heaped the maize. We conveyed them gradually into the thresher till all the maize grains were threshed. While the thresher was threshing the grains, it was the same time bagging them into the sacks provided. The left ones were those which remained on the cobs. We sorted out all the grains from the cobs and had to winnowing the grains to remove all the chaff.
In all I had 4 of the big bags of the maize grains. Each of the bag for threshing cost 25gh¢, so the 4 bags cost 100gh¢. We swept all the place and disposed all the cobs at proper place and we removed all the dust. I couldn't seal with the thread, because we were tired. Tomorrow, God willing, I will allow the buyers to come for the maize.