You can earn big when you grow oranges
Help with functional information on growing oranges for business
Pius Ojakol
Dear Pius
Locally known as omuchungwa, oranges are eaten for as a source of vitamin c. The fruit is mainly used to make juices.
Common varieties
• Washington navel: These are eaten directly as a dessert fruit. Its fruit has no seeds and matures early in the season.
• Valencia: It produces fruits which are very succulent and give a lot of juice.
• Hamlin: This type of tree produces small fruits with a smooth and shiny skin. Other varieties on the market include Kuno navel, Nova, and Minneola.
Soil requirements
Oranges can be grown in a wide range of soils provided they are well drained. Fertile and well aerated soils with a pH of between 6.0 to 6.5 is ideal. It is advisable to test your soil and know its status.
Propagation
But budded or grafted seedlings are most preferred planting material. Grafted materials do produce fruits earlier than the seeded type of oranges.
How to start
• To prepare for planting, secure disease free seedlings from a commercial nursery.
• Dig up holes of 2ft wide and 2ft deep with a spacing of 4 by 4 metres from hole to hole. This means in one acre you can plant more than 250 plants.
• Mix the top soil with two spades of compost or any other farmyard manure.
Planting
• To plant remove the polybag sleeves and place seedlings in the center of the dug holes. Then cover with top soil first and make the soil around the seedling firm.
• The covered soil should be up to the original level of the nursery sleeve but make sure that the graft joint area is kept well above the ground to avoid infection.
• A stake can be put alongside the seedling to which the seedling is tied to keep it erect.
• Water the seedling way up to fruiting with the weather put in to consideration.
• Also weed, as like any other plant oranges do not do well with competing plants. Watch out for pests and diseases like the leaf miner, citrus root nematodes, citrus psyllid and the orange dog.
Harvesting
Budded or grafted plants start producing fruits at about two to three years from planting, and production will increase as the tree grows.
Oranges are ready for harvesting when the fruits change colour from natural green to a slightly yellowish colour. To harvest, clip or pull the fruit gently from the tree using a basket to collect. After harvesting, keep the oranges on the counter at room temperature for up to a week before they begin to degrade.
Market
Start from your home, to farmer markets, oranges do have a permanent market on stalls, super market, moving carts, and even hawkers.
Answered by Dr Allan Ahimbisibwe, CEO at Spark Agro-Initiatives Ltd.
When should I introduce dry matter for dairy cows?
Nixon Mwebaze
Dear Nixon
To match the feeding value in a certain quantity of feed with the total requirement of an animal, we should have an indication how much the animal is able to eat.
This quantity is expressed in dry matter (dm). The reason is that the quantity of water in a feed in fact can be considered as ‘drinking’ water for the animal.
It does not contribute to the feeding value and to the intake of a particular feed.
When estimating the dm intake of an animal, it is assumed that it receives an unlimited supply of roughage.
This means that the animal has permanent access to the fodder. After eating as much as it likes, there should remain an edible left-over of about 10 per cent of the supplied forage. It has been established that under those conditions a ruminant will eat between 1.5 per cent and 2.5 per cent of its bodyweight in form of roughage.
The actual percentage depends heavily on the quality of the fodder which is supplied.
Answered by Luke Busingye, soil expert
How long does it take for plantains to grow? Lonah Mbabazi
Dear Lonah
Plantain is a large-leaved fruit banana plant. Today, the price for this plant is growing meaning farmers are interested in growing more plantains.
How to plant plantain?
The place should be well-drained, find the place that is free from any floods. One of the main requirements is that the soil must be rich in organic matter, especially in black soil.
Prepare the field
One should prepare the field with a minimum disturbance to the soil. Manual clearing is more preferred to mechanical. It is better to use mulch in the case of perennial cultivation.
Spacing
The recommended distance between the plantain rows is three metres. It is also possible to leave 2.5 metres of a spacing distance. In the case of 2.5 metres spacing, 1 hectare should contain 1600 plants.
Selecting the cultivars
If you are planning the field cultivation, it is better to choose medium plantains. Giant plantains are more likely to be damaged.
Preparing the suckers
Suckers can be easily separated from their mother plant with a machete or spade.
The process of planting
The sucker should be just placed in a special hole and the corm should be covered with soil. The holes should have about 30cm by 30cm size.
Mulching
Organic matter is highly important for plantain cultivation essentially if the field was in use for a long time.
Answered by Zaina Agu, banana agronomist
