New contest: The most popular and rare crops in my area by @Phenomenal2052

Top of the day to my fellow steemians and a big appreciation to @badsha1 for this amazing contest.

I live in the south-western part of Nigeria and in my area the common crop here is Plantains/Banana and Maize. Here in my area Plantains is the most common among the two, I can literally say it that almost all the house in my area have lots of plantain trees in there compound.
In my area, most people only plant them for personal consumption but there are occasions were lots of plantain gets ripe at the same time, so they take part of it to the Market to sell.
Here is a picture of the plantain trees in our compound and our neighbors compound and also a selfie I took. Sorry about the quality of the pictures, my phone camera got faulty, am trying to save up to get a new one.

The least common crop in my area is Maize, most people only plant them during the raining season here, because they don't want to do the stress of watering it, so most people don't really fancy planting maize in my area, but some people do.
Here is a picture of the Maize planted in the one plot of land beside my house.

If I am to talk about demand, a lot of people really demand for plantain in the market, but there are few commercial farmers to supply them, so the price of plantain is expensive to what it should be. For example a bunch of plantain like the one in the picture above could cost around 1000 naira that approximately above $2, it might look cheap but on a good supply trend it shouldn't even be up to $1.

On the other hand Maize are also expensive because the commercial farmers only plants them seasonal, so their is fix period of time when people can buy fresh Maize because they are seasonally planted and the commercial farmers take the advantage by hiking the price. I really hope our government work on something to stop the seasonal planting so that Maize can be enjoyed more and cheaper.

Talking about characteristics, I am sure I have much to say there, but the important characteristics I feel I need to talk about in Plantain is that it can survive any season without you bothering much. Maybe there is no rain or the sun is too much. It can survive any season.

Another important characteristics is that it doesn't produce seed you have to plant the small one, called 'sucker'. The interesting part is that if you plant one plantain you can get like 4, 5 sucker or more from it. And if you re plant those suckers so that they can be independent, they did give you another suckers when they grow.

The only characteristics I will like to talk about in Maize is that they don't require lots of space between them, you can literally plant 2,3 seed in one hole and another 2,3 in a meter away. But some people prefer to give them space, but it not compulsory. Plus their leaves have itchy hairs.

Like I mentioned above planting plantain is not too stressful, just get your sucker and dug a small hole that can cover up just the root, and you just cover it up and give it a little heap beside the body to hold the tree up. You don't necessarily have to water it, it can generate it's own food. Especially in the raining season, when it's grown you don't have to worry about which season it is.
Then after maybe six months, your small sucker should have turn a grown tree with bunch of plantains on it, when the little flower underneath the plantains are dried up and the plantains looks good, then it's ready to be cut off from the tree. Just like the picture above, i can decide to cut it off or wait a week or two.
Trust me it's is really profitable, I will cite an example using my area, in my area you can get few sucker for free from family, friend or even strangers and you can nurse it up to a big plantain plantation and then export it to the northern part where they don't plant plantain.

Maize on the other hand, require more effort, because you will need a cleared portion of land, make heaps, and then get your seeds and start planting andyou also have to water it day by day if it's not the raining season, you will also have to clear the weed so that your farm won't get hijacked by weeds. You will have to do that for like two three months till you Maize is done, and then the harvesting starts you will have to remove the Maize from the Maize tree and then remove the shaft. If you will be doing it for large business purpose you will surely need, a tractor, and harvester. But at the end of the day you will surely make good profit.

Thank you for reading and a big thank once again to @badsha1 for this amazing contest which I enjoyed myself participating.

Cc. @belenguerra
Cc. @bright-obais