Agriculture

Things to do before Planting:

  • Site Selection: Visit the site, observe it, and assess it. This is where you access the area for accessibility if it is suitable for planting.

  • Three points to be considered when selecting a field to produce vegetables:

  1. Field Topography

  2. Soil Type- (Clay, Loam, and Sand)

  3. Water Availability and Quality

NOTE: Short-term crops and Long term crops. Anything that takes over a year is considered a long-term crop. Cash crops take about 6 weeks. Cash crops are a subbranch of short-term crops.

  • Sand Soil loses moisture

  • Clay Soil retains moisture

  • Loam Soil is in between

SITE SELECTION: When selecting a site, you need to think about the following:

  • Soil type

  • Climate: This refers to rainfall, temperature, sunlight amount, humidity, and wind.

  • Topography: This is the surface shape of the land and physical features such as mountains, rivers, and valleys.

  • Accessibility: It is difficult to take tools, equipment, and planting materials to a field in uneven terrain with poor road accessibility.

  • Land Clearing: This is the process by which the selected site is cleared of trees, weeds, stones, and remains of previous crops.

LAND CLEARING METHODS:

  1. Manual Method: Involves the use of simple tools such as cutlasses and hoes in a laborious way.

  2. Mechanical Method: This involves as such bush cutters, bulldozers, tractors, chainsaws, and other materials.

  3. Combination of manual and mechanical methods

CROP PLANTING: In crop panting, there is indirect and direct seeding.

NOTE: There is a limited amount of food storage when planting seeds. Place a small amount of soil when planting over the seed or else it will not grow. You plant on the ridges and walk in farrows. You place the seed and soil in the planting hole to germinate. Each plant has a different planting distance.

INTRODUCTION TO AGRICULTURE

The word Agriculture is made up of two words from Latin: The first part of the word Agri comes from, the word Agrarius meaning not of land and the second word comes from the word cultura meaning cultivate.

Today, Agriculture is a major industry with many branches. When a farmer is growing crops he does things like clearing the land, plowing the soil, sowing and caring for nursery seedlings, planting, caring for plants including irritation in dry conditions, pest and disease control, harvesting and processing of crops.

WHAT IS AGRICULTURE:

  • Agriculture can be defined as the science of growing plants and rearing animals for human use.: Agriculture is the business of growing crops and rearing animals, through the application of scientific knowledge acquired over time.

  • Farmers and gardeners use their knowledge and practical skills when carrying out agricultural activities. At the same time, other people are applying scientific skills at agricultural research stations, and in the science laboratories of colleges and universities to improve the growth, harvesting, and processing of plants and animal products.

  • Today agricultural technology and computer science both play increasing roles in agriculture. People are employed at machinery shops designing and building agricultural tools and equipment. This requires computer-based skills.

  • The business aspect of agriculture is also very important. Farmers spend money to produce crops and rear animals and then sell these to earn an income. If the farmer earns more than he spends he is said to make a profit. Some of this profit can be back into the farm, invested in other types of farming, or put into savings. If the farmer earns less than he spends it is known as a loss

HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE:

  • If you visit the national museum, ancient villages, and plantations, you will realize that the country you live in today was not always exactly as you see it now.

HUNGER GATHERERS:

  • Early humans extracted their basic needs of food, clothes, and shelter from the earth. They did not practice agriculture as we know it. Instead, they lived by hunting animals and gathering wild fruits, roots, and berries. This is why early people have been given the name of hunger gatherers.

FIVE MAIN BRANCHES OF AGRICULTURE:

  • Agronomy: It deals with soil management and the growing of crops.

  • Horticulture: Deals with the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, and ornamental crops.

  • Agricultural Engineering: Involves the knowledge of farm machines and equipment. It also deals with developing new systems and practices to address problems facing agriculture.

  • Animal Science: It is the breeding and rearing of animals for specific purposes, such as for their, milk, meat, and fur.

  • Agricultural Economics: Deals with the business end of farming. It deals with how much inputs are invested in agriculture and outputs obtained from the agriculture and farming business.

IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURE:

  • The history of humankind is very closely related to the development of agriculture. Even though many products used today are artificial many other necessary ones come directly or indirectly from agriculture.

  • Provides food (Food Security)

  • Provides medicine

  • Provides employment opportunities

  • Provides raw materials for clothing

  • Provides raw materials for housing

  • Provides recreation and leisure activities

  • Contributes to a country’s GDP and GNP

  • Provides trading and foreign exchange

  • Conserve habitat

Careers associated with Agriculture

The skills and knowledge acquired through the study of agriculture may be further developed and employed in a variety of professions, including those below.

  • Agricultural economist

  • Agricultural engineer

  • Agronomist

  • Animal nutritionist

  • Animal physiologist

  • Aquaculturist

  • Biochemist

  • Biometrician

  • Biosystems engineer

  • Botanist (Plant Biologist)

  • Climatologist

  • Ecologist

  • Entomologist

  • Extension officer

  • Geneticist

  • Hydrologist

  • Logging Engineer

  • Marine Scientist

  • Molecular biologist

  • Naturalist

  • Nutritionist/ Dietician

  • Plant Pathologist

  • Plant Physiologist

  • Post Harvest technologist

  • Range Manager

  • Agriculture Robotics Engineer

  • Weed scientist

  • Food inspector

  • Forester

  • Forage Agronomist

  • Food safety Specialist

  • Turf Scientist

  • Veterinarian

  • Viticulturist

  • Wildlife Biologist

  • Food inspector

ASSIGNMENT: Explain the importance of agriculture to the economy of your country.

MAJOR CHALLENGES AFFECTING LOCAL AND REGIONAL AGRICULTURE AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

  1. Praedial Larceny- This is the stealing of agricultural produce

  2. Poor Infrastructure Development such as roads, water supply systems, etc.

  3. Lack of collaterals or Securities to be qualified for a loan

  4. Nb. Collateral is something that is put in place for a loan, for example, land title, etc,

  5. A loan is borrowed money

  6. Lack of Markets- a market is anywhere produce or products are sold. For example online (eg. Amazon, Alibaba), to individuals, supermarkets, other countries, on the street, the original marketplace, etc….

  7. Lack of factories (Agro-processing plants) - Factories (Agro-processing plants) are converted into products. For example, tomatoes are processed into ketchup

  8. Topography - This refers to the slope of the land. For example, if the land is flat, slightly sloping, hilly, mountainous etc

PLANT PROPAGATION

Define the term Plant Propagation

List the 2 types of plant propagation

Describe the 2 types of plat propagation

The process of increasing the number of plants from the parent stock is called plant propagation. Propagation involves the following steps.

  1. Plant material needs to be used this can be a seed or the vegetative part of a parent plant.

  2. Dispersal of seed or a planting method: the seed has to be dispersed (spread) or the planting material has to be placed in suitable conditions of moisture, soil, and temperature.

  3. Germination of seeds or growth of planting material takes place to form a new plant.

There are two basic types of propagation, sexual propagation, and vegetative propagation (also known as asexual propagation).

Sexual propagtion in plants involves the bringing together of both the male and female parents to produce seeds that will develop into a new generation of plants.

Asexual propagtion does not involve both parents. This process involves vegetative parts of the plant (stem, root, and leaves) which develop to produce a new plant. It is the seedless multiplication of plants.

Sexual Propagation

Propagation from seeds

Pollen is transformed

Propagation by seeds is the major method by which plants reproduce in nature and one of the most efficient and widely used propagation methods for cultivated crops.

A seed is a ripened flower ovule developed after fertilization

It consists of an embryo and stored food material

Asexual propagation does not involve both parents. This process involves vegetative parts of the plant (stem, root, and leaves) which develop to produce a new plant. It is the seedless multiplication of plants.

Asexual propagation                          Sexual Propagation

Natural

Artifical

Use of seed method

• The plantlet can get food from the parent plant

• The plantlet may get food from the parent or is supplied artificially with plant nutrients

The seedling has a definite amount of food stored in its cotyledons that may or may not be adequate

Types of Vegetative Propagation

There are two types of vegetative propagation.

  • Natural vegetative propagation: this is when the vegetative reproduction of plants occurs naturally, for example in bananas, pineapples, dasheen, yam, and tannia.

  • Artificial vegetative propagation: this is when people use techniques such as shoot layering and cutting, buddings and grafting

Comparing sexual and asexual propagation

The new plants arising from sexual and asexual propagation are given special names. The new plant that is produced from a seed is called a seedling, while the new plant produced from the vegetative part of the parent plant is called a plantlet.

In natural vegetative propagation, plants can multiply because they posssess specialized vegetative parts that will produce new plants also plants can be induced to grow roots and shoots and form a new plant before separation from the parent plant

  1. corm (root)

  2. tuber (stem)

  3. suckers

  4. Rhizomes

  5. Runners or stolons

  6. Adventitious buds

In natural vegetative propagation, plants can multiply because they possess specialized vegetative parts (corm, tuber) that will produce new plants. Also, plants can be induced to grow roots and shoots and form a new plant before separation from the parent plant.

Parts

Suckers-These is where shoots arise from an existing root system, for example, banana

Corm-These are short, vertical, swolen, underground plant stems that serve as a storage organ, for example in eddo. Under field conditions, corn may produce ore than on bud, each of which gives rise to a new corm, so that when the plant corn decays these new corms form new plants.

Rhixomes-These are modified underground storage stems, also serving as organs of vegitiative reproduction, for example ginger and tumeric.

Runners or stolons-These are aerial stems that creep along the ground. They are found in plats like the sweet potato which have a creeping stem. New plants usually develop whenever the nodes touch the ground.

Bulbs-Plant like onions (allium capa) and tulip (tulipa) reproduce by forming bulbs in the garden you may notice that bulbs split and new bulb will give rise to new plants adjoining the parent plant bulb.

RABBIT REARING

Female rabbit - doe

Male rabbit - buck

Baby rabbit - kitten