Planting Sorhum Dry

The short rains should be not far away and so we started planting this week, we planted about half the 650ha although we have to wait until Monday for more fertilizer to be delivered, it was held up at port.
I am planting at 60,000 seeds per ha hoping for about 45,000 established plants per ha. (4.5 per square meter) This equates to around 2.2kg of seed per ha.
The photos show the residue from the previous crop, the profile is full although it has not rained for over 4 months and so the top is dry.
When what is known as the short rains come hopefully in November they are as it says usually short so you really want the crop in the ground.
On Average if there is such a thing as average November receives around 100mm for the month, that could be between 50mm and 200mm. Wait and see.
 

Office taking shape

Some office furniture being made on site, I bough the rough sawn timber from a sawmill and have a Fondee (tradesman) working on it.

Wow that is a hole

An Aardvark had renovated his home while the crop was growing. The actual entry hole is just in front of James on the above photo.
Unknown to us was an underground cavern (maybe living room) the harvester broke through and bottomed out and there was still 200mm of clear space under the wheel when it came to rest.

Bagging Sorghum

This is the first truckload of bagged grain I have ever delivered, Samson, Robert, Gideon, Patrick and a fellow who came with the truck loaded 27t on board the truck.(hard work)
Patrick who is a casual said to me after loading that his energy had "left him", we now just get 10 outside casuals to load each truck. For the Aussies, excluding the bags which are provided by the end user, it cost about 10 bob (Kenyan shillings) to fill and sew the bags and another 10 bob to load on the truck.
This is about $2.50  per t so it is not such a big expense, just takes some coordination.

John's Birthday