Cereal Crops: Maize, Guinea Corn, Millets, Rice

Abstract

M aize is grown to some extent everywhere in Nigeria and the Gold Coast except in the extreme north; in the districts within 90 or 100 miles of the coast it is the only cereal crop. There are several local varieties, which differ chiefly in the length of their growing period. It was presumably introduced several centuries ago, but many attempts that have since been made to introduce new exotic varieties have met with no success, as the native finds them less palatable than those to which he is accustomed. The early maize crop in the south corresponds to the gero crop of the north, in that it is planted with the first rains and is the first food crop of the year to come on to the market. If planted in March or early April it is ripe in August; but much of the crop is harvested while still soft. By eating it in this stage the grower obtains a much more palatable food, and his wife avoids the rather laborious process of reducing the hard ripe grain to flour. In favoured positions, as on the banks of streams, maize can be, and is, planted in nearly every month of the year. Early maize is usually planted on the sides of stale yam heaps without any digging or turning of the soil, and receives no cultivation other than weeding. The seed is sown at the rate of about 16 lb. per acre. Generally cotton, guinea corn or beans are planted through it at any time after it is well established. If no other crop is interplanted in it, and the maize is sown correspondingly thick, an average good field of early maize will yield about 2000 lb. of dry grain per acre, but the yield obtained by the native farmer is not easily ascertainable. It is probably little more than 1000 lb. per acre, for his crop of maize is obviously much smaller than those on the experimental farms. In Southern Nigeria, late maize is usually planted as soon as the rains recommence at the end of August, and it is harvested in December or January. It is often planted on the flat on newly cleared land where it is intended to plant yams in the following season.