Looking North at the Trials

This photo is looking north, if you click on the photo and expand it you will see in the back ground the trials.
From Left there are Desi Chickpeas,Kabuli chickpeas, the big bare area is where the mung beans should be (if powdery mildew had not wiped it out) then a different white sorghum variety (Sila) then two Corn/Maize varieties on the far right. All the trials are 4 hectares although the mung beans are 8 hectares.
The foreground is the later planter white Sorghum.

Another Birthday at the Orphanage

I went over to one of the girls 9th birthday this evening, Annie and Grace would have come although Grace fell off a motorbike about 30minutes after arriving home from School, no serious damage, although it really scared her.
Every time we visit the children at the Orphanage there is a revolving door of boys in particular who just want to be hugged.
It shouldn't be that amazing I guess as they really crave a fathers (and Mothers although there are many more women on staff) love, with 23 kids it is difficult for the staff to spread themselves around. In saying that they do a wonderful job at caring for all.
It's a very challenging thing to drive away and not feel very torn.

Birds,those coots (a coot is a undesirable thing)

We have had 25 ladies chassing birds off about 600 acres of the most advanced crop. More later on this.

Crop Progress

The crop is moving alone, the bottom photo is of one of the good size heads that are mostly on the secondary tillers. They are better heads in general to the first ones.Hmmm

Moisture Profile is full

As can be seen the  soil profile is full of moisture, We recieved about 30 to 40mm over the week in two falls and even though there is a dry band I expect the moisture to join up.
We hope to plant on this field in about 10 to 14 days. The moisture probe is 1.1m long, the probe is just to the right of my boot in the bottom of the photo.Click to enlarge.

Another 20mm of Rain Yesterday

We had a very much appreciated 20mm of rain on all the crop yesterday, as I write this there is another storm making a racket, maybe some more today. 40mm of rain in crop in 120 days,not much but enough.
A new Kenyan friend, Peter, asked on email how many days the sorghum had been planted for about 120 days for the first planted to today, probably about 10% of heads are full grain, 80% filling and 10% just flowering. So quite a spread.
The Birds have started giving us curry, we have a plan though, more on that later.

Weigh Bridge Foundations Fiinished

Lucky and John's Birthday Bash (click on photo to expand)

Looking from East to West across the trials

The last planted white Sorghum in the for ground, red Sorghum behind with the Maize at the back, the Mung Beans and Chickpeas are behind the Maize, these are obviously the commercial scale trials.
In the Commercial trials there is White Sorghum, Red Sorghum, Two Varieties of Maize, Mung Beans, Kabuli Chickpeas and Desi Chickpeas.

Maize Could just make it ???

The Maize is hanging in there, this is directly beside the Mung beans in the previous photo. The ground is cracking open as the crop dries the soil moisture profile out, its a race to the Finnish now.

Mung Beans living down to their name

These Mung beans or Green Gram as they are known here, have been smashed by Powdery Mildew, the trial area has received less than 5mm of rain and still the PM has destroyed the crop, I am taking the approach that if a crop requires fungicide then it is not considered as the small holders don't have the capacity to be spraying multiple times. Lucky its a trial.

Day at the Dr with John

Annie and I have had a busy three weeks visiting doctors with various children from the Orphanage, Wednesday we took John and Christine (one of the house mums) into town. John had had some appointments with specialists. Great news all is well with him. We all enjoyed a very nice lunch, John liked having his pirate sitting on the rim of his glass.

We also picked up Luckys new glasses,the photos is when we arrived back at the home and lucky tried them on. We will take Lucky back in 8 weeks to see if the glasses are helping to correct an allignment problem he has. (thats what I call it).
It is both John and Luckys birthday party on Saturday night, they both are six, should be fun.

Chickpeas Looking OK,Good For 5mm Total Rain In Crop

 

 

 

My best yield guess is 1t per ha on the chickpeas,we will harvest them and then plant that seed straight away in the next trials. We only have 4 ha of both Desi and Kabuli so we will only be able to sample the market with what we have over and above seed. Wait and see.

Leveling New Land

We have had the tractor working for around 40 days preparing the second area of about 1500 acres (600hecatres)
We are on the last week I think, it will be as flat as a tack (That means level, smooth)
Although I am a no tiller (i.e not into cultivation) with new land it is unavoidable.
The moisture profile in this 600ha is absolutely full and we are waiting on either some rain or the end of October to plant this area to Sorghum.We will plant it dry starting in the twenties of Oct if we have had no rain up until then, the reason is that November is just about a sure thing and as we have a full profile of moisture it would become to wet very quickly. We will also have more commercial scale trials, not sure what, I am still thinking on this. 

Max enjoying the Ride

James Trip

Hi, this is James, last week I went on a trip with my school to Tsavo West which is a huge national park in south eastern kenya. The park is mostly dense shrub and also has mountains which is what we aimed to climb. We were about two hours drive inside the park and camped at the base of Ngulia mountain right next to a crocodile and hippo infested river. Where we were camping was in amongst the palm trees that are home to tonnes of elephant, hyena, leopard and lion as well as buffalo and hippo. During the night as we were sleeping in our tents, we heard lion, hyena and the guards told us the next morning that there had been hippos and elephants wandering around our tent during the night. Amazingly, elephants are so delicate that they can step over tent cords and dodge us sleeping which I'm glad to hear.
Returning from climbing we were all exhausted and us boys decided we would have a brief dip in the river. We were a little nervous at first but we had people looking out for hippos and crocodile and it was very refreshing.
 While climbing the mountain , although we didn't reach the summit, I was amazed to see elephant tracks and poo all the way up in incredibly precarious spots. On our way out of the park on the last day, we were very lucky to see twenty or so elephant on the side of the track, we saw hyena and we were incredibly lucky to see a male leopard resting under a tree. This is not very common at all especially in that game park as the cover is so thick.

The Butchery

Our Kitchen floor was a make do butchery last evening, the conservancy have some sheep and they kindly dropped one to us (wool off)
I don't have a cleaver so out to the wood hot water heater and washed the little Axe up. The chops were a bit rugged,I am a bit like lightning ( never hitting the same place twice)
It was very hygienic, I put down a old sheet.

Sorghum Doing Well

I took these photos today, I have had a couple of difficult days and so this is therapy to me to walk the crop. Annie and the kids are well, Annie had a busy but good day yesterday at the children's home, she goes on Wednesday's and helps with their little school.James has been at an adventure camp over the past few days,Graces year went last week, great team building stuff, it really enthused her. Farmers, you can click on the photos to enlarge, the top photo shows the wildlife conservancy in the background, the crop is an oasis of green in a brown landscape.

First Cobs

The Maize has its first cobs, not sure how it will end up,wait and see

Chickpeas podding up

We had to spray the chickpeas this week, the grubs were eating well. The trials area which is where the chickpeas are has had around 5mm of rain since planting in three falls. About 75/80% of the other crop has had about 20mm.

You think you have staff issues

This morning I had to have a little chat to a couple of the team, we have some foondees (stonemasons) working at the moment and one threatened another with a panga (machete) yesterday.
I have separated them today (by 8km) to calm things down.
Don't think it was all that serious although best to let them calm down.
The panga fellow is very sorry this morning and so hopefully all is OK.
In Australia you would just get out on the flat and have a fist fight and sort it out, just happens these fellows have pangas. (they don't carry them always, just at work)

Sunday afternoon with the Kids

From the top, Grace and two of the children having a laugh,next John tries my hat on, I think he likes it, and at the bottom, Annie chats to a little darling. (click to enlarge)