Date: 6^th - 10^th of February 2023

Class: SSS 1

Term: 2^nd Term

Week: 5

Subject: Agricultural Science

Topic: Crop Husbandry

Duration:45 minutes

Teaching Aid: A chart

Reference Books:Essential Agricultural Science for Senior Secondary Schools by O.A Iwena (pg 1465-149)

Comprehensive Certificate Agricultural Science for Senior Secondary Schools by L.A et Al (pg 250-254)

Behavioural Objectives: By the end of this topic, students should be able to

Discuss husbandry of tomato
Discuss the husbandry of okra

Presentation I

Step 1: Teacher revises last topic

Step 2: Teacher introduces and explains new topic

Step 3: Teacher writes note on the board

Step 4: Teacher evaluates students

Step 5: Teacher marks students' notes and give assignment

Previous knowledge: Students have been taught cultural practices

Content

TOMATO (Lycopersicon esculentum)

Tomato is a vegetable crop commonly grown by peasant farmers in West Africa. The fruit called berry when ripe can be eaten raw, used for soup or stew preparation or in preparing vegetable salad and other food.

Land Preparation: Land is cleared with cutlass and ridges are made with local hoe, or land can be prepare by ploughing, harrowing and ridging.

Varieties/Cultivars: These include mone-maker, valiant, pork, dwarf gem, marglobe, ife plum, bonita, roma, local varieties.

Climatic and Soil Requirement:

Tomato requires a temperature of - , rainfall of 50 – 125cm, high level of sunshine and a well-drained loamy soil, rich in organic matter.

Method of Propagation: These are seeds which can be by drilling or broadcasting.

Planting Date: Tomato is planted in early September and October.

Seedrate: 5 – 10kg of seeds/ha

Nursery Practices

It is done on ground, beds or seed boxes/trays with top soil, thoroughly mixed and watered.
Seeds are sown in drills, 5cm apart and 2.5cmm deep.

Shading, mulching, weeding and watering are done.

Nursery lasts for three weeks when the plants are at the three-leaved stage.

Spacing: (i) 60cm x 60cm without staking (ii) 50cm x 30cm with staking

Transplanting: Seedling with four to five leaves, 15cm – 20cm tall and about 25-30 days old are transplanted with ball of earth. Holes measuring 5 cm deep are dug and seedlings are transplanted to the field either in the morning or evening.

Cultural Practices

Weeding: This should be done at regular intervals.
Watering: soon after transplanting, seedlings should be watered every morning and evening till the plants are able to stand on their own.

Fertilizer Application: Apply N.P.K 15:15:15 fertilizer to each plant three weeks after transplanting at 250kg/hectare; or apply any organic manure like compst or farm yard manure at 30-40metic tones per hectare.

Staking: Provide stakes to enable plants stand erect and prevent lodging. Stems are tied or trained to the stakes. Staking allows for good fruiting and keeps fruits from disease attack arising from contact with soil. Staking should be done before flowering.
Maturity Period: This occurs between two to four months after planting.
Harvesting: Matured or ripe fruits are harvested by hand picking and stored in dry, cool place. Harvesting starts as from two months.

Processing: Tomato is either used or consumed after harvesting, or, it can be processed into tomato juice or paste.
Storage: it can be stored as canned paste.

Pests of Tomato

(i) Cricket and Beetle: These eat up leaves or cut off young seedlings and cause damage to crops

Control: Spray with insecticides e.g vetox 85.

Diseases of Tomato

Fusarium Wilt (root rot): It is a funal disease (fusarium oxysporium) which is spread by wind.

Symptoms: These include gradual dropping of leaves followed by wilting and drying up of leaves of the whole plant.

Control: (i) Treat soil with copper fungicide. (ii) Practice crop rotation.

Root knot disease: It is caused by a nematode. Roots develop galls or knots with yellow, curled leaves and dwarf plants.

Control: (i) Treat soil with nematicide (ii) plant resistance varieties (iii) crop rotation

Bacterial wilt: This is caused by a bacterium called pseudomonas solaraceurium. It is transmitted through the soil and it attacks roots.

Symptoms: Symptoms include wilting of the leaf, death of the affected plant, and slimy exudation from the stem.

Control: (i) Practice crop rotation (ii) Avoid infected soil

Leaf spot disease: This disease is caused by a fungus called chadosporium spp. It is an air-bone disease in which the spores are deposited on leaves.

Symptoms: Symptoms include circular white patches which appear on the leaves. Dead spots also appear on the leaves.

Control: (i) Use copper fungicides like perenox and Bordeaux mixture

(ii) Practise crop rotation

(iii) Use resistant varieties.

OKRA (Abelmoscus esculentus)

Okra is also a vegetable crop commonly grown by local farmers in West Africa. The fruits called capsule, when young, are harvested with knife and used in soup preparation.

Land preparation: The bush is cleared with cutlass while ridges or heaps are constructed with hoes. Alternatively, the land can be prepared by ploughing, harrowing and ridging.

Varieties/Cultivars: New lad’s finger and the perkin’s log pod.

Climatic and Soil requirement: Okra requires a temperature of 18^oc – 30^oc, rainfall of 100cm-150cm per annum and a well drained loamy soil.

Method of propagation: By seeds

Planting date: Early April and May

Spacing: 60cm x 60cm

Planting: Seeds are planted directly into beds, two to three seeds per hole which should be 3cm deep. Germination occurs as from the 5^th day after planting.

Cultural Practices

(i) Thinning and supplying: These can be done where necessary

(ii) Fertilizer application: Super phosphate fertilizer at 100kg/hectare is required. Ring application is used.

(iii) Weeding: This should be done regularly.

Maturity period: This occurs between three and seven months depending on varieties.

Harvesting: The young and succulent green immature fruits are plucked or harvested with knife. Harvesting is done over a long period of time.

Processing: The fruits are used as food.

Storage: The fresh fruits are stored in a cool place, e.g refrigerator or the dried ones are stored in sacks.

Pest of Okra

(1) Flea beetles: These insects attack the plants and eat up the leaves. This they do by putting holes on the leaves as they eat them.

Control: spray with insecticides

(2) Cricket and grasshoppers:

These insects also defoliate the plant by eating up the leaves and young stems.

Control: Spray with insecticides to kill vector.

Uproot and burn infected plant

Evaluation:

Assignment

Lesson Notes By Weeks and Term - Senior Secondary School 1