Amazing people of the @agriculturalmindset community, I hope today is a great Sunday and a sweet weekend for everyone. It's a lovely one for me and I feel so happy.
I am going to share with us today how some pests infested our maize farm and destroyed the leaves. I will also detail my next action after noticing this incident.
Friday last week was a free day from school for me. The school had a convocation ceremony which almost all the institution workers attended. I was free and I had the opportunity to visit our maize farm.
The maize had grown and some had started bringing forth fruits. I was so sad to find out how the leaves were being destroyed by pests. These are caterpillars borne by pollinators. The pollinators have done a good job but leaving their larvae on crops to feed on the leaves and destroy them is the bad side of their job.
This is the importance of a farmer's regular checkup on his farm. I often do this checkup on our different farms as my parents are busy bees with their morning to late evening work. I did a general survey of the farm and checked all the leaves being eaten up and I saw some of the caterpillars. I was able to see two alive ones and I also saw the faeces they left behind after eating the leaves.
I also saw some snails which are the major pests that eat succulent leaves of plants. I remember the post @mattsanthonyit made about predators of plants. He mentioned snail as a very potential danger in a farm of crops.
When I got home and told my Mom about the infestation of the larvae on our maize plants, she bought some insecticide powder for me. She warned me to be careful about how I come in contact with the powder. I already knew I was supposed to be careful as insecticide is also "humani..cide".
I applied the insecticide on the maize plants by a spraying method and I did it when it wasn't windy to avoid inhaling the blown powder or wasting the powder. She didn't let me have the full insect powder, rather she guessed the quantity that would be enough and tied it in a transparent wrap and gave it to me. My mother loves to be economical in all things. I hate this side of her sometimes.
I applied this powder she called BHC powder on all the affected plants first before applying to the suspected ones. I did this because the powder wasn't enough and I had to make sure the affected ones got sprayed before the others.
This is how I checked up on our maize farm last week and I hope my effort will not be in vain. I was very happy because since last Saturday I applied this insecticide powder, there has been no rain. If the rain had fallen either on that Saturday or today, Sunday, my effort would have been wasted because the insecticide would have been washed to the ground and there would be no effect anymore. I didn't take any pictures when applying the insecticide because I was very afraid of contaminating my phone. I only touched my phone after washing and sanitizing my hands.
I had a little smile on my face while returning after the fumigation because some of the maize plants had already started bringing forth fruits and we would soon enjoy our sweat together as a family. There is nothing as sweet as sitting one day to feast on your one-time labor.
I will encourage every farmer to regularly check up on their farm to avoid recording losses in the profits/loss ledger.
Thanks for checking up on my post and I hope we have learned more about the negative effects of some pollinators, the importance of regular farm checkups, the control measures for borrowing pests of maize and similar crops.