Menu
Tomato farming has long been overlooked by many Nigerians who choose to venture into agriculture for the first time. This somewhat ignored vegetable crop has remained a constant ingredient for the preparation of multiple meals in the country. This generally implies that the average Nigerian can’t consciously go a day without eating a meal prepared with tomatoes.
In spite of it’s ignored state by new farmers, this vegetable crop is currently grown by over 200,000 farmers in Nigeria, whom collectively grow over 1.5 million metric tonnes of tomatoes every year.
Tomatoes are grown and sold by farmers to end users, some buyers take the purchased tomato further, by creating by-products from this crop.
Tomato processing largely involves converting the farm product into other forms. E.g tomato pastes, ketchup, etc.
You’d need a wide area to grow your crops. Whether you’re starting out of your backyard or not, having a dedicated piece of land groomed specifically for growing your tomato crops is the first and most important thing.
Having the right breed of tomato seeds is important to the success of your tomato farm. Whether it’s roma tomatoes (the most common and widely sold tomato breed in Nigeria), cherry tomatoes, sauce tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes or even more, identifying and purchasing the seeds for the right breed is important to your farm’s success.
The tomato seeds are best grown indoors first, then transferred to beds when they have an established root system and a few leaves. This is important because they need a constant temperature of at least 60 degrees and preferably 80 degrees to germinate.
Your crops would need to be grown in a highly regulated watered environment. Dry lands mostly never grow crops, and with various factors like timing, genetics, environment, water supply, and more to be considered, a good irrigation system must be in place to ensure your tomato crops stay health.
Not all farmlands are suitable to grow tomato crops. For some, you need to constantly fertilise the soil to achieve optimum growth. Using the right fertilizer on your farmlands to aid your tomato crop growth is important to the crop’s full and healthy maturity.
Tomatoes duration is 3 months from nursery to harvesting, that is between 60-75 days. Tomatoes can be harvested for more than 3 months under good condition. And 6 months in green house. Just as it is done in pepper, stake your tomatoes plant early (at 6 weeks) so as to support their weight during fruiting.
Tomatoes is pluck out from its parent plant by the use of hand. Remove the vegetable when it shows ripeness but you can still remove them unripe. As tomatoes still continues ripeness after harvesting. After the first harvest, other subsequent harvest can be done every 3 days till the plant dies off.
