The plantain farming sub industry requires that you give yourself as much advantage as possible to remain competitive.

Types of Plantain Seedlings
Firstly, it is great to state that there are two types of plantain seedlings:

(1) Suckers which sprout from a mother plant
(2) Cultivars which are grown in laboratories.

Among plantain farmers in Nigeria, the use of suckers from a mother plantain plant is very common and more readily available.
Plantain farming is really profitable and it is a sub niche in the farming industry that could help you make lot of money in 2020.

Land Preparation
Before you begin any form of land preparation ahead of your plantain farm, it is wise that you carefully observe the landscape of your farm and devise the best and cheapest means through which you would cut down the vegetation (if there are vegetation (s) in your farm).

Manual Clearing
Manual clearing isn't rocket science. It is actually a task you could do all by yourself or get some farm hands to help with it, if your farm land is not too large. It might not be reasonable to use land clearing machines, if the size of your farm land is relatively small. A bulldozer could also be used for removing big tree stumps and dense vegetation, if you have such in your farm.

Burning the Weeds
After cutting down the vegetation to prepare your farm land for your plantain farm, it is obvious some dead plants would be all over the place. So, you would have to gather the dead plants on the farm land and set them on fire. Although, burning weeds in your farm may not be a completely eco-friendly approach.

Ploughing
The use of ploughing on the proposed land for your plantain farm depends on the nature of the soil. Although some school of thought have it that ploughing might not be necessary for plantain farming.

Nutritional Requirements
You have to apply manure (poultry poops, for instance) and inorganic fertilizers to the soil to support the optimum growth of plantain suckers planted in your farm.
To make money farming plantains, you must realize that the use of organic fertilizers (poultry poops or cow dungs, for instance) is non negotiable, if the fertility of the soil in your farm land is not enough to support the growth of plantains.

Planting Holes
When your farm land is is fully prepared for the planting of plantain suckers, you would have to dig a holes of about 10cm in diameter and 6 inches deep. It is expected that you would plant each plantain sucker inside each of the planting hole you have dug. There are two approaches to digging up planting holes in your plantain farm ahead of the actual planting of the plantain suckers.

#1. You might have to do the digging of the plantain holes all by yourself or pay some willing and experienced persons to do this task, if your farm land is small.

#2. You would have to buy a device called Earth Auger Drilling Machine, if your business goal is to make money MASSIVELY farming plantain as a large scale agripreneur operating on many hectares of farm land.
An Earth Auger is a physical capital asset and it helps to increase productivity and profit in your farm. An equipment like this has the capacity to serve you for many years and help you make more money than other plantain farmers.
Note: Your business will succeed with the use of many and better factors of production.

Actual Planting Operation
To plant plantain suckers or cultivars in your farm, you would need to plant the suckers inside the dug out holes. Next will be to cover the soil and flatten it by the use of your feet or boots. This is done to prevent air sockets from entering.

Post Planting Operations
Managing your farm should be regular and systematized factoring important inputs such as labour and time management. To realise your goal of making money with your profit-oriented farm management, you are required to be on top of your game with important inputs like labour, time management. An important use of farm management requires that you de-sucker your plants.

Water Supply
Water is a very important input with plantain farming. If your farm is in an area with insufficient rainfall or if you are planting your plantain suckers in the dry season, you must devise a means to artificially supply water to your plantain farm.
If you choose not to supply water through any other means despite not having sufficient rainfall, your yield at harvest might be outrageously low and you would not make money farming plantains.

Leafing
Leafing is a management practice whereby a farmer removes infected leaves or the unproductive shoots and allows them stay to on the ground. Leafing helps to prevent the spread of plant diseases. The spread of diseases in your plantain farm is not an incidence you should desire. An incidence like this has the capacity to make you lose money in your plantain farming business.
Hence, when you cut off the infected leaves, allow them fall on the ground so they could serve as mulching for the plantains growing in your farm.

Diseases Management
As a result of the damp and rainy weather conditions in highland areas, diseases and bacteria are more common. To the control the event of disease outbreak, you have to spray copper fungicide on the leaves of your plantain.
Rainy weather condition and dampness is very common in highland areas. These ultimately make it easy for there to be disease outbreak and bacteria infection.
To minimize the incidence of disease outbreak and bacteria infection, you would need to sparya copper fungicide on the leaves of the plantains growing in your farm land.

Weed Management
To properly control the emergence of weeds in your plantain farm, you would have to carefully weed out some small portion around each plantain tree. I would advise you use a non selective herbicide. A non selective herbicide slows down the growth rate of the weed and kills them eventually.

InterCropping
You could plant cassava in the spaces between each plantain tree. Planting cassava in the spaces in between means you are multiplying your income from your plantain farm. This means, you would make money from the cassava and from the plantains. As at the time of writing, cassava has a poor market price. For now, cassava is not a crop many millionaire farmers are interested in.

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