As a farmer, your biggest concern is ensuring the safety of your crops. From seedling phase, to harvest season, and then into storage, ensuring the quality of your crop and your harvest is the most fundamental focus of your operations.
Mitigating or preventing damage to your crops is a full-time, often stressful, endeavour, but not an insurmountable one. In particular, while your crops are growing, protecting them from environmental damage, insects, and other pests, is vitally important.
Termites are one of the biggest pests for crop farmers, as they can inflict damage not only to the quality of your crop, but also the quantity, and supporting wooden infrastructure. In particular, cotton, sugarcane, wheat, grass, some fruits and vegetables, and wood, are constantly under threat from termites.
Termite agricultural recommendations vary across the board, depending upon your individual operational practices and requirements. You may choose to use chemicals or pesticides to protect your crops or adopt more organic preventative practices. No matter the approach you choose, preventing damage to your crops is vitally important.
If you’re a maize farmer, you’ll know the dangers of termite infestation, as they can damage your crops at stem level, cutting through the stalks and causing an entire plant to wilt and die. As termites are attracted to moisture, it’s recommended that you monitor the moisture content of your soil quite closely, along with the moisture content of your crop. The optimal moisture content for harvesting maize rests between 23 and 25 percent, as this is when kernels shell more easily and stalks most often stand better, making your harvesting process that much simpler. A moisture content below 18 percent is risky, as termites will more determinedly damage your crops, leading to a failed harvest.
Using effective aeration techniques in your grain silos and storage solutions can also help to prevent damage to your crops, as these may help you to speed up the harvest cycle. In particular, being able to harvest your crops earlier can help you to prevent environmental damage and stave off the effects of weather damage, should unsuitable conditions be expected. Similarly, effective aeration within your grain storage solutions helps to ensure the quality of your grain harvest and prevent pest or insect infestations during the storage cycle.
Get in touch with SBS Agri, and we’ll help you find the right solution that ensures every harvest is a great harvest.
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