Buhle Nkomo —
“I grew up on a farm where my father was a labourer. I developed keen interest in tobacco production at a tender age but was not allowed to work hence I gained knowledge on tobacco production from the peripheries,” said Stanley Damuson (43).
“I later on enrolled for courses in farming, some short and others extensive. I have implemented what I learnt and in some instances fine-tuned the theory to suit my environment by adjusting and seeing what works.
“Farming is a continuous learning process, where sometimes you learn formally, other occasions you share knowledge with other farmers or you learn from your own experiences and mistakes.
“My dream came true when I was employed as the Forrester section H farm manager in Mvurwi in 2003, where I oversee all the farming activities,” he said.
“Having grown up on a farm and as a child of a farm worker, I have a soft spot for our work force and I want them to have a sense of belonging. This way I have realised farm labourers work better and produce more,” continued Damuson.
“I am very particular about implementing good agronomic practices as this guarantees good yield and quality leaf which translates to good prices at the floors and better income for everyone involved.
“The secret to tobacco farming is land preparation. If you cannot prepare your land properly, you compromise yield as well as the quality of the leaf.
“We start disking around mid-January then we apply glyphosate which is a chemical used to fight weeds before we apply lime in order to neutralise and balance the soil’s pH levels in preparation for the tobacco crop,” he advised.
“After disking, we start ploughing in a bid to maintain a weed free ground as this helps to manage diseases and insects that may be hosted by the weeds. Ploughing is then followed by ridging to conserve moisture.
We usually grow tobacco for two years then we put maize for two seasons before we plant Katambora Rhodes grass for another two years. We benefit from this crop rotation as tobacco leaves a lot of residual fertiliser for the maize which in turn, together with the Katambora Rhodes grass, frees the land from nematodes.
“I keep a diary of all our activities and schedules of our operations such as irrigation, fertiliser application. Keeping a diary is a very important practice for all serious farmers. As I go through my diary, I internalise my operations and have everything on my fingertips, even as I sleep, I know exactly what each field needs,” Damuson said.
“Depending on the market we produce tobacco for, we determine whether we want to produce orange styles or lemon styles of tobacco, something alien to many small-scale farmers although very important. We staggered the planting of different fields so as to ease pressure on barns when it comes to curing and we are currently reaping and curing the crop that we planted on the first of September.
“There is need for a degree of thoroughness and determination throughout the tobacco production cycle. Although we have faced different challenges, we have soldiered on,” he said.
“Generally Mvurwi does not receive much rainfall which is a challenge to the dry land-crop hence we have constructed our own dams using tractors and dumpers so as to reduce the area that is not irrigated. We are currently considering the installation of drip irrigation to save on water.
We have yielded 4 000 – 4 400kg per hectare on irrigated crop and sometimes have gone up to about 3 300 – 3 500kg per hectare on dry land crop. We have experienced hailstorm in the past seasons but our crops are always insured.
When we experienced the hailstorm, they came and assessed the damage in the field before compensating for the loss,” he said.
Damson concluded by urging tobacco growers to implement good agronomic practices to experience a bumper harvest and obtain good prices during the selling season.
For additional information contact TIMB on telephone numbers 08677004624/6 or 0772145166/9 or 0279-22082/21982 or 025-3439 or 067-24268/29246 or 0277-2700 or 064-7280 or 0271-6772 or Toll Free numbers 08006003 / 0731999999/ 0712832804 or WhatsApp 0731999999 or E-mail: [email protected]