Books/resources on farming? Decided to change my path in life and farming interests me a lot, but I know almost nothing about it. How can I teach myself about irrigation, fertilization, pest management, etc?
Books/resources on farming? Decided to change my path in life and farming interests me a lot, but I know almost nothing about it. How can I teach myself about irrigation, fertilization, pest management, etc?
Tons of videos on YouTube about this subject. Those are very broad subjects so it's hard to tell you where to look .Do you have specific questions? What's your end goal?
Well I wanted to get out of the West, and I wanted to move to a more religious country. I saw that one of the countries I'm interested in provides a lot of incentives for farming, so I was interested in that. But like I said, I know almost nothing, so if anyone here has studied agriculture in uni or has practical experience, I'm very interested in any knowledge they can share
Gotcha. I can help you develop a plan for that. I have a BA in the agriculture field and I'm pursuing my masters in soil science. I manage just shy of 3k acres as well. How large of an area are you planning to farm? Also, do you know what growing zone or soil type you'll have? Do you want crops and/or livestock?
Thanks a lot my friend. The country I'm looking at is Turkey/Turkiye, and I just googled their soil types, which are "calisols, cambisols, leptosols, and fluvisols." I'm totally ignorant at the moment, so I have no idea how much land will cost or how much I should acquire, but I hope to invest hopefully $50k or more, depending on the loan I can get. I would want livestock ideally, but realistically I would want to farm whatever is most productive/profitable. I think Turkey is known for hazelnut production, so I've looked into that a little bit. But I haven't decided yet, so I'm interested in any broad knowledge.
You're welcome anon. I want to help as many anons as I can secure their future in agriculture. I don't know much about Turkey agriculture, outside of beekeeping. I highly recommend you look into their methods if you enjoy beekeeping. From what I can find, Turkey has hardiness zones from 2a to 12a. That makes it difficult to determine exactly what would be best to grow without having a smaller range of zones. Without knowing a specific location or size it will be hard to tailor a unique plan for your situation. In general, when setting up a new farm, you'll want to conduct a soil test to determine soil composition. This information will be key when you begin making soil amendments. I would also test to see what your soil microbe balance is like. If you properly balance these microbes, you can avoid fertilizing almost completely. Check out Dr. Elaine Ingham for more information on this subject. I highly recommend getting your land in order before planting. It can help eliminate a lot of avoidable pests and plant diseases.
After you get your soil situated, I would learn to attract beneficial insects. For example, a new property a purchased had an aphid infestation. I made bug hotels and planted crops to attract various beneficial insects. In my case, I wanted to increase the ladybug and assassin bug population to control the overgrown aphid population. I prefer this method of pest control because I don't like spending money on harsh chemicals every season. Once you establish a working ecosystem, they'll have little, if any, work to do on your part.
I really appreciate this a lot, thank you very much. I'm working a bit right now, I will reply to you with some questions later!
No worries anon. I'll check back later.
Thanks for the tip about the bugs, I also want to avoid chemicals so I'll look into what types of bugs are native to the area. But also, where did you learn such techniques? Like any textbooks or anything? This way I can teach myself some more.
Also, this is probably a dumb question from your perspective, but how does one start a farm? Like say for example I wanted to start a hazelnut farm, would I buy some mature hazelnut trees from someone? Or for livestock, I suppose I would be buying chickens from someone? Where do I find the information for these things, like where I can buy it, prices, etc
Irrigation will be another issue you need to tackle. I'm not sure what type of well will work best in your situation. I recommend looking into sand point wells, rain water collection, and drilled wells. I have all three of these and they all have different benefits and weaknesses associated with them. Do your research to determine which would be best. You can, most likely, setup a sand point or rain water collection system yourself.
Livestock is another challenge you'll have to overcome. I'll focus on poultry because that is a large export in Turkey. Chickens, in particular, are very simple to raise. I recommend free ranging to save money on food costs. Depending on the size of the property and volume of chickens, you could avoid feeding them all together. Note, this method is not maximize output. Again, without knowing the type of climate it is hard to recommend a specific breed of bird. One of my favorites is a rhode island red. They are dual purpose, meat and egg, birds. I have around 100 of them at the moment and they produce anywhere from 90-140 eggs a day. It around a month to hatch an egg and chicks are ready for processing after about 14 weeks (or when they reach around 6lbs).
Do you have any questions so far? I'm sorry this information isn't that great, but it's really difficult to generally explain how to do this without more specifics.
>Well I wanted to get out of the West, and I wanted to move to a more religious country.
Shouldnt you just pray to allah to guide you through farming?
Just start planting shit, im sure itll all work out inshallah.
ywnbaw
have a nice day. Why attack someone trying to improve their life? Your mental illness is really showing.
We're you trying to reply to the guy he was replying to?
catch fish, plant fish in the ground, put plants above fish. your soil will be very fertile.
I've heard of that, are you talking about aquaponics?
were you being serious?
No worries. I learned online, school, books, and actually doing it. I participate in a lot of different research and development programs through my school and conduct my own experiments. It's hard for me to recommend specific resources because I don't know which zone you'll be doing things in and methods vary a bit. I would recommend you think of different aspects associated with successful farming and conduct your own research. For example, I wanted another source of water on my property if power goes out. I looked around and discovered sand point wells. I learned a few different methods for drilling them. I successfully installed a 25 ft deep well with a hand pump as a result. I had no interest in learning about wells or prior knowledge of them, but that idea led me to learning more than I'll ever need to know about drilling wells.
No dumb questions. That's basically what it takes to start a farm. You get the plants or livestock and start working. If you wanted to start a hazelnut farm, you would start by determining how you'll grow your product. Seeds take up to 8 years for the plant to produce the product, while grown tree can produce in 2-3 years. If I were you, I would buy as many hazelnut trees as I could afford. From there, I would use different propagation techniques to create more hazelnut trees.
I would also build enclosures for chickens and rabbits and setup a composting pile. Chickens will assist with pest control while helping to make fertilizer for your trees. Chicken manure must be composted before it can be applied to plants. The rabbit manure can be applied to the plants immediately. This will help rebalance your soil as well.
I couldn't tell you where to buy trees or animals in Turkey. I would look around online. I have no clue. I buy my stuff online and locally.
Any reason why chicken manure must be composted first and rabbit manure can be applied immediately?
Because of what they eat. If an animal eats only grasses/plants like rabbits and horses, you can use the poop right away.
that's old fertilizer, not aquaponics.
My point is that you can stop seething. Thank you
True, if I seethe any harder I might just break, upend my life and go move to another continent
Alright my friend. Best of luck with pride month. But if you can't add anything of value to this thread, please seethe somewhere else
>please seethe somewhere else
Trust me, im trying.
Thinking about being a goat farmer, so I can escape the trannies and gays that live rent free in my head
https://archive.org/details/2012_cdw3d_dvd_set