How to grow fonio

Clear the weeds and old stalks off the plot. Fonio doesn't need rich soil — poor, sandy land is fine — so you are working the surface, not digging deep.

Break the topsoil down to a fine, crumbly tilth — tilth just means how fine and soft the loose topsoil is. Hoe and rake until the lumps are gone and the top looks like coarse flour; dust-fine seed needs fine soil to settle into.

Level the surface with the back of the hoe or a light drag, then firm it gently by patting or lightly treading it down. A level, firm bed spreads the rain evenly and holds each seed where it falls.

Rake out any hollows and low spots — the tiny seed rolls into them and comes up as thick clumps beside bare patches.

On a slope, work and rake across the slope, not up and down, so the first heavy rain doesn't wash your fine seed and soil downhill.

Get seed of an early (short-season) fonio for the hungry-season crop — it ripens in about 70 to 85 days after sowing, so it feeds you before the main crops are ready. (Later types take up to 120 days and are for a fuller season.)

Pick clean seed — from a good head, well winnowed, free of chaff, weed seeds and any dark, dusty grain (that dust is smut, a disease you'll meet in the growing stage). Clean seed means fewer weeds and less disease in your field.

Work out roughly how much you need for your plot and get it early; a little extra is worth having so you can re-scatter any bare patches in the first days after sowing.

Fonio needs little or no fertiliser — it is one of the few grains that yields on poor, sandy land — so don't spend on heavy fertiliser. If you have a little well-rotted manure or compost, a thin scatter worked into the bed will lift a very poor plot, but it is not needed.

Keep the seed dry and cool until sowing — off the ground, away from damp, rats and grain stores where it can pick up moisture or pests.

Sow onto a moist surface — ideally just after a rain, or wet the bed first. The tiny seed must not dry out while it sprouts; it comes up in just a few days.

Mix the seed with dry sand before you scatter — about one tin of seed to two or three tins of sand. The sand carries the dust-fine seed evenly through your hand instead of letting it fall in clumps.

Broadcast the mix — broadcast means scatter it by hand — walking steadily across the bed and swinging your arm in a wide arc so the seed falls in an even sheet.

Go over the plot twice, the second pass across the first (if the first walked up-and-down, walk the second side-to-side), to even out any thin and thick spots.

Barely cover the seed: a very light raking, or drag a leafy branch or a light bundle of thorns across the top. Cover it no deeper than a fingernail — a few millimetres — fonio must sit almost on the surface (it sows just 0 to 1 cm deep). Seed buried deeper simply never reaches the light.

Keep the surface moist until the crop is up, and re-scatter any bare patches you spot in the first few days while the soil is still damp.

Walk the whole plot twice a week (every 3 to 4 days) for the first two weeks after sowing — corner to corner, not just the edge by the path.

Look for bare patches where the seed didn't take. While the soil is still moist and the crop is only days old, re-scatter a little seed there to fill them — later re-sowing just falls behind.

Look for a hard crust after heavy rain — a sealed skin of soil the fine seedlings can't push through. If one is forming over seed that hasn't come up yet, break it very gently with a light raking so you don't uproot what has already sprouted.

Look for grasshoppers — you'll see them hop up as you walk, and find ragged, chewed edges on the young leaves. A few are normal.

If grasshoppers come in numbers and start stripping a thin crop, act: hand-pick them in the cool of early morning when they are slow, and clear the grassy field edges where they breed.

Walk the crop twice a week (every 3 to 4 days) from about two weeks after sowing onward. Learn to tell fonio from the grassy weeds: look closely and compare — the weed grasses are often coarser, a different green, or taller and faster than the fine, even fonio. When unsure, follow a plant you know is fonio and match it.

Mark where the worst weed patches are, so your weeding (the next task) hits them first.

Check the forming heads for smut — a head that turns into a mass of black or dark-brown powder instead of normal pale grain, and smears your fingers when you touch it.

Pull out and carry away any smutted plant — this is called roguing (removing sick plants so they can't infect the rest). Carry it right out of the field in a bag or cloth so its dust doesn't blow onto healthy heads or into next year's seed.

Glance at the leaves for leaf spot — small brown or reddish spots or streaks that can join into dead patches. On fonio it is usually mild: keep the crop growing well and rely on clean seed and rotation next season rather than spraying.

Weed early — about 2 to 4 weeks after sowing (roughly 14 to 30 days) — while the seedlings are still tiny and the weeds are still small. Waiting even a week too long lets the weeds get ahead.

The hard part is telling crop from weed — they look alike. Go slowly and pull the weed grasses by hand, close to the ground, so you don't uproot the fonio beside them.

Be gentle — fonio is shallow-rooted and sits loosely in the light, sandy soil. Steady the soil around a fonio plant with one hand as you pull the weed next to it, so you don't lift the crop with the weed.

Pull weeds roots and all where you can, and lay them out of the crop; snapping off just the tops lets many grow straight back.

Get the whole plot done inside this window. On a big plot, weed the worst patches first — the ones you marked while scouting.

From the time the crop flowers, walk it often — every 2 to 3 days. Flowering passes quickly, so check closely.

Watch for birds — small seed-eating birds and flocks (such as weavers or queleas) settling on the field and lifting off in a cloud when you walk up. Early on a few come to test the softening grain; soon they arrive in numbers.

Note where they first land — usually the field edges near trees and bushes. That's where you'll concentrate your scaring.

Feel a few heads: as the grain turns from watery to soft and milky (squeeze one and a milky liquid shows), bird damage is about to start — that's your signal to begin daily scaring (the next stage's task).

Check the crop isn't stressed for water — fonio needs moisture most now, at flowering. Leaves rolling shut or turning grey in the heat mean it is too dry.

This applies only if you have a way to water. Most fonio is rain-fed and never watered — that is normal for this hardy crop.

If you can water, keep the soil just moist through flowering — water lightly every 5 to 7 days, more often in fierce heat or on quick-drying sand.

Check by pushing a finger in: water when the top few centimetres have gone dry, and stop while the soil below is still damp.

The flowering window is short, so a few well-timed waterings here do more than water at any other stage.

Don't overdo it — fonio likes light, well-drained soil and hates standing water. Aim for moist, not soaked.

Start scaring as the grain turns soft and milky (around 55 days after sowing for early types) and keep it up every day until harvest.

Be in the field at dawn and dusk — that's when birds feed hardest. Share the daily watch with children and neighbours so the field is never left open at those times.

Guard actively: walk the field, shout, clap, crack a whip, bang a tin, or string cords across the plot tied to rattles and flapping cloth or old bags.

Keep moving and changing things — birds quickly learn that a scarecrow which never moves is harmless, so shift it about and vary the noise.

Concentrate on the edges near trees and bushes, where flocks gather and launch their raids.

As you guard, watch the crop ripen: it turns golden and the seeds go hard. Early types are ready fast (about 70 to 85 days after sowing) — the moment it is ripe, be ready to cut, because ripe fonio shatters (drops its grain onto the ground by itself) if left standing.

First dry the cut plants fully — spread the bundles in the sun on a clean mat, tarpaulin or swept hard floor (never on bare soil, which pushes damp and dirt back in). Dry plants thresh far more easily.

Thresh the dry plants — beat, flail or gently tread them to knock the grain loose from the heads.

Winnow to clean it — pour the grain from a basket in a light breeze, or toss it in a winnowing tray, so the wind carries off the light chaff and dust while the clean, heavier grain falls back.

De-hull the grain to rub off the husk. Traditionally this is pounding in a mortar in several short rounds, winnowing between each round, until the grain runs clean. It is slow — where a mechanical de-huller is within reach, it cuts this work sharply.

Dry the clean grain again in the sun until it is dry to the touch — it should run freely through your fingers and not feel cool or clump together.

Store the clean, dry grain in a clean, dry, sealed pot, tin, gourd or bag, in a cool, dry place off the floor, safe from damp and rats.

If the grain still feels cool or damp, or clumps together → it is too wet: spread it back in the sun and dry it more before you store it. Stored damp, it moulds in the store and the whole reserve can be wasted.