Stuart Barden in Kenya

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Sorghum Growth Stage Very Uneven


The top photo had earlier rain than the bottom photo,the germinating rain was very uneven across the 620ha of sorghum so we have a large difference. Some of the smaller plants suffered some waterlogging, wait and see how it recovers.

Barley Growing Well


The barley is looking good, the individual plant (top photo) which was the first plant I pulled out had 40 tillers, the bottom photo has my boot in the middle of the 75cm row (somewhere). The barley was dry planted in late Oct and germinated on the 4th of Nov. This crop is 49 days since germination.

Spray Pattern at 10 litres per ha by Air

This is some water sensitive paper that I attached to a leaf of sorghum while applying some fungicide by air. I should have put a reference item like a match stick in the photo. The water sensitive paper is about 6cm by 3cm.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

110mm of rain over the past 10 days

Everyone though the short rains had finished then we had around 110mm in Dec so far, getting a bit wet in the sorghum on top of a full profile of moisture. Its very wet, as the photo shows it was a dam filler which is good for the 2000 tilapia fish we stocked in this dam, it was pretty low prior to this rain. 

Removing some Twiga from the Sorghum

 
 
I found these fellows wandering around our field yesterday afternoon, we have a fence we are working on at present and the giraffe must have taken a wrong turn.

Saturday, December 14, 2013

192 People weeding Nutgrass

We have had locals doing some weeding, it works out costly enough per ha, although lots of employment. If you click on the Photo you can see a bit better.

Trials up (7th Dec)

 

Sorghum up and away (1st Dec)

I took this photo on the 1st of December, the rain was a bit inconsistent across the 600 odd hectare field. So we have some just up and some a little more advanced.
 

Wheat Harvest in Australia

I returned to Australia for most of November, the photo above is of harvesting what may be the last crop I ever grow in Australia, although you should never say never.
Also loaded a container with spare parts and cleaned up a lot of lose ends, my Dad particularly was a tremendous help, I would have needed two months without his help, thank you also to my Brother Craig and my Mum.