For tomato farmers, it is the season of sowing and being a capital-intensive crop, cutting cost and maintaining high yield top priorities for most farmers. As a commodity that its demand exceeds local capacity to produce, the shortfall presents a wide room for investing in tomato with the expectation of good returns.
Among the domestic food prices which the Financial Derivative Company commodity checks found to be trending upwards after months of relative stability, tomatoes (50kg) in particular have jumped by over 70 percent to N13, 000. In Kano, the same scale of tomatoes has moved from N3, 000 at the farm gates to N,8, 000 on factors linked to ending dry season production and the commencement of both the wet-season farming and Ramadan fast, Sanni Yadakwari, the secretary, Tomato Growers Association told BusinessDay.
Nigeria produces about 1.5 million tonnes of tomatoes worth N3 billion yearly, according to unofficial calculations, lagging far behind huge producers such as India and China, and even Italy which produces nearly five times than Nigeria with less land.
While working to shore up production, experts say farmers can accentuate meager profits by slashing costs in the following five areas.
Select tomato seedlings carefully
Even though a plant with lots of green leaves may seem like the obvious choice, remember the plant’s root system plays a far larger role than the leaves when it comes to tomato production. If seedlings put lots of energy into leaves, they suffer a setback when transplanting them and will take time to recover before beginning to produce fruit.
Aside from your savings, growing certified, organic, heirloom variety plants from “scratch” comes with many side benefits; one of the most compelling being to avoid seedlings raised using pesticides containing neonicotinoids. In addition to having potential chemical contamination, hybrid tomato seeds and seedlings may carry more genetic modification than simple hybridization.
The introduction of non-tomato genes into your plants could produce unexpected and unintended effects on bees and other beneficial insects and perhaps on you, too.
Get high yield varieties but focus planting methods
As important as getting high yield seedling, farmers should also concentrate well on how they plant. Laying tomato seedlings on their side will cause the top of the plant to bend upward. Once this happens, your plants are ready for actual planting. Dig a trench in your prepared bed and set the seedlings into it, lying on their sides. Cover the roots and stems with soil, worm castings and compost. Water well and top off with wood chip mulch. Leave the top part of the plant exposed to air and the sun. The small hairs on the stems of the plants will transform into roots, so each of your little seedlings will develop healthy, vigorous root systems. A good root system is what makes healthy, hardy, heavily producing tomato plants.
Avoid abusive application of fertilisers and chemicals
Applying fertiliser when required could be more efficient and cost-effective. In addition to crop nutrient requirements and soil types, fertilizer recommendations should take into consideration soil pH, residual nutrients and inherent soil fertility. Therefore, fertilizer recommendations based on soil test analyses have the greatest potential for providing tomatoes with adequate but not excessive fertility. Applications limited to required amounts result in optimum growth and yield without wasting fertilizer or encouraging unnecessary consumption of nutrients, which can negatively impact quality or cause fertilizer burn. Recommendations based on soil tests and complemented with plant tissue analyses during the season should result in the most efficient lime and fertilizer management program possible.
Harvest in plastic crates, not raffia
Fresh market tomatoes are best harvested by hand. Good harvesting management is needed to pick high-quality tomatoes. Care must be taken when harvesting “breaker” stage fruit because the riper the tomato, the more susceptible it is to bruising. Harvesters should carefully place fruits into picking containers instead of dropping them. Research has demonstrated that a drop of more than 6 inches onto a hard surface can cause internal bruising that is not evident until after the tomato is cut open.
