The beginning of the heatwave period, scheduled from July 15 to August 15, will not affect the first-class corn and bean planting in the entire northern region of Las Segovias, assure peasants familiar with these climatic cycles in our country, due to the fact that winter has been regular and that is guaranteeing that the harvest will come out at the end of July and mid-August next.
What the Nicaraguan Institute of Territorial Studies (INETER) has warned this year is that the heatwave period, which normally occurs every year from July 15 to August 15, will have a behavior “between moderate and severe (more dry than usual)”between the second half of July and the second half of August».
In plots of land in the municipalities of San José de Cusmapa and Palacagüina, in the department of Madriz, corn chilotitos and even tender corn and Camagües beans are already appreciated.
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«Here in eight days there will already be Camagüe beans, tender chilotes and corn. The onset of the heatwave will not affect the planting at all, and if God allows it, from July 25 to 28 we will begin to harvest the beans and the corn planting will begin at the end of August or mid-September,” assured Javier Herrera, a producer from the indigenous municipality of San José de Cusmapa, in Madriz.
Good winter despite forecasts
Herrera added that despite the bad forecasts, the behavior of the rain in his area has been good. “We have had good rains here in (San José de) Cusmapa and that will guarantee us that we will have a good harvest, even with the arrival of the heat wave,” he said.
The heatwave is a climatic period in which it stops raining for at least a month (from July 15 to August 15) in our country, making it easier for the peasantry to attend to their plots planted with corn and beans in better conditions.
“Look, the winter has been good here, and as you can see the corn stalks are already 50 centimeters from the furrows (soils) of earth and at the latest, before the heatwave begins, they will have a height of one meter and in mid-August the meter and a half, which is when you have to tapiscar (cut the dry corn cob to shell it), but the Camagüe beans already began to leave here on July 15,” explained Héctor José Martínez. Ponce, a producer from the La Calera community, in the municipality of Palacagüina, in Madriz.
The bean harvest, which is expected to start coming out between the end of July and mid-September, is guaranteed by the good performance of the winter recorded this year in Las Segovias.
For his part, the peasant Luis Alberto Silva Machado, from the community of La Mía, in the municipality of Jalapa, an area of the department of Nueva Segovia, affirmed that, if the drought forecasts are met, as INETER has said, “it will affect The last planting that we started in the middle or end of September, “he said.
Silva Machado, 63, who owns four blocks of land in La Mía, Jalapa, added that after the heatwave the winter rains have to continue to finish setting the corn and bean plants. “If the winter stops, San Pichingo (a popular saying with the most problems) will take us, and as things are screwed up, we will end up in more misfortunes,” she assured.
According to records from the authorities of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAG), in the department of Madriz more than 16,000 families in the countryside sow their plots of land each year, while in Nueva Segovia some 21,000 families do so. In the department of Estelí, some 17,000 producers grow corn and beans in the first, last and apante crops.
By: United Voices.
