Mum and Dad with Chicks (black feathers are the male) Dad not happy

Happened to run into the Pope while at the Airport

Short Rains Are Here

The short rains are over the period of November and half December, from June to October (five months) we received 23mm in 4 events, so zero effective rainfall.
Since the start of November we have had 80mm, we will need three times this amount to get even a 75% full soil moisture profile. At the end of Oct our fields were bone dry and the soil cracked open ready to receive the rain.
We will aim to plant our next crop in Feb if we can plant on moisture to make the most of April/May rains when the crops needs it most, these rains are known as the long rains. (truth is they are about the same length as the short rains, i.e. 6 weeks)
 

Back home in Kenya after 15 day study tour of South America

Well after spending time in Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina the small group of us returned to our homes and farming businesses.
We saw lots of different approaches to cover crops, No Till and machinery that allows planting  into high residue loads.
In Brazil and Paraguay there was obvious sub surface compaction although the 1600 to 20000  mm of annual rainfall masks it to a degree.
Lots of very good farmers and consultants growing good crops of Soya Beans and Corn.
We then moved into Argentina in an area called "The Pampas" silty clay soils that surprisingly don't appear to have the same degree of sub surface compaction  as the red high % sand soils of Brazil/Paraguay.
One amazing thing was that we did not find one farm running on a CTF system. (Controlled traffic farming ).
Thanks to all the farmers/consultants/machinery manufacturers who gave us their time, it was greatly appreciated.
     

Last Day In Argentina, looking at a field that has been no till for 30 years

Wooly Pod Vetch Cover Crop (he is concerned about his receding hairline)

Steve from Beyond Agronomy showing serious no till passion at a reseach station in Argentina. 

Iguassu Falls (Brazil side)

What a Cover Crop ( Brachiara Grass in Paraguay )

Jonti Standing Beside Lab Grown Soya With 2136 Pods on One Plant

Moving from Brazil to Paraguay (Background of Photo)

Stara Zero Till Planter Doing A Great Job Planting Soya in Southern Brazil

11 t Hectare Cover Crop (dry matter)

We had our first day with two leading farmers in Brazil, both were planting Soya Beans into some serious residues.
Great day, lots to learn from the people we are meeting.
Our host "Cleber" from a company called "Stara" has been 1st rate.
Today was Day one of our study tour in South America., over the next 10 day's we will look at various farming systems in Brazil,  Paraguay and Argentina. Busy 10 day's.

Just met one of our hosts, Cleber (Brazil)

Starting Our South America Study Tour

We arrived in Sao Paulo (Brazil) this afternoon,  heading to the home of Zero Till tomorrow.

Watching South Africa playing in WC, in Jo Burg

Three Wise Men (in transit to South America)

Group of Visitors from Ghana

Had a great visit from a group of farmers and researchers from Ghana today, they are in Kenya looking at no till/conservation farming.
There was a lot of discussion and things learnt both ways I am sure.

Crazy Harvest and Grain cleaning finished

Finally after about 10 or 12 weeks of harvest and grain cleaning we are sending the last truck load off farm today (sat). It has been an intense time with harvest followed by our grain cleaner running 24/7 for a month and a half. The barley had to be cleaned 3 times to get us to 99% retention (above the screen).
Next season will be wheat and Mung Beans (green Grams) and a small commercial trial of both Desi and Kabuli chickpeas as well as a forage sorghum trial for potential pelletizing into the animal feed market.
Our whole team, Robert, Gideon and Samson are very happy to have a quite time for a while.
The short rains are almost here, they normally start at the end of Oct or start of Nov, it may rain 50mm over Nov/Dec or 300mm, time will tell.
Our soils are empty of moisture at present, our hope is that we can fill our moisture profile (the 1.25meters of black soil) up with the short Rains (Nov/Dec) then plant in Feb/March and have the long rains (April/May) falling in crop.
The average rainfall for April/May is around 155mm, so without moisture in our soil we would struggle to grow a viable crop.
On average we should be able to collect around 150mm of plant available water in our soils before we plant, i.e sub soil moisture.
This gives us a total of around 300mm with in crop and soil moisture, using a common water use efficiency method we would use the 300mm less 110mm which is 190mm then for wheat if we do it all right we should be able to achieve around 12 to 15kg of grain per mm. This should grow between about 2.3 t ha and 2.8 t ha.
Lots of talk of El Nino here in Kenya it means more rain than normal although as with all things climate, you just don't know what will happen.
 

Annie and I saw this fellow while out walking late yesterday

Our small Quantity sales area

We have up to 20 small sales each day, with people buying from 5 kg to 100 kg.
We only sell probably 1% of our crop this way, it is however only fair that the local small traders can buy at wholesale from our farm.
We sell, Mung beans,  split Mungs , wheat and wheat gradings (small grains)

Saw this fellow when driving to the farm this morning

He was out shopping  ( he was following 4 Zebra ) click on photo to get better look at him.

Two future John Deere Clients

Barley Eating Baboons

This troop of baboon are enjoying the little bit of spilt barley on the road, they run off whenever someone comes along then back in a few minutes.

Nature Opening the Door for the Rains

There is a lot of talk of El Nino recently, which in many parts of Australia's eastern side is related to below average rainfall, the converse is true in Kenya and the region, it is more often than not above average rainfall when an El Nino event is occurring, with greater volatility as well.
In Spanish the term "El Nino" refers to "the Christ child" or "the male child" whilst "La Nina" means "female or girl child"
Heavy black cracking soils (called "Black cotton" soils in east Africa) like we farm in Kenya crack open due to the clay particles contracting as they dry, this then effectively opens the "Door" to filling up the soil with moisture, it also allows for some recycling of shallow nutrients and organic matter to fall and reduce a "Stratification"  of nutrients on the surface.
Nature is the ultimate zero till system!!

Now that is well used

Saw this little hammer in the industrial area, notice my boot beside it, nice repairs (click for better view)

Manitou out of action, A team steps up,140t loaded by hand

Manitou Loader blows a head Gasket

Am in the industrial are of Nairobi, the fellow is about to pressure test the head off the engine.
He is cutting "bungs" or stoppers out of wood then hitting them in to seal the inlet and outlet ports to pressure test.
Then they will shave the head to get perfectly level.
Looks crazy but it works. 

First Commercial Wheat harvested

Some small plot trial results

 

Soya Bean planted 4/4/15,  plant pop 24 plants per square meter,variety was DPSB19 yield   1.12 t ha 

 

Mung Beans (green grams) planted 4/4/15 plant pop 27 plantrs per square meter variety was KS20 yield 2.51 t ha

 

Soya Bean planted 4/4/15, plant pop 26 plants per square meter, variety was DPSB8 yield was 1.27 t ha

Yellow beans planted 4/4/15 plant pop was 15 plants per square meter, variety "From Village next door" yield was 2.54 t ha (nice)

Soya Beans planted 4/4/15 plant pop was 17 plants per square meter, variety EHI3600, yield 1.62 t ha

Kabuli Chickpeas, planted 8/04/15 variety "from Tuskys supermarket" plant pop was 14 per square meter YIELD WAS 3.64THA

Soya Bean planted on the 8/04/15, variety was Nyala, plant pop was 25 plants per square meter, Yield 1.76 t ha (highest Soya yield)

 

All in all we got some interesting ballpark information (they are not replicated trials) from this seasons trials, Kabuli chickpeas , Local yellow Beans and Mung Beans (Green grams) look like crops we will take into commercial production.

New Buhler Grain Cleaner

Our home built for $3500 rotary grain screen just could not get us into specification (99% above the screen,.i.e retention) so we either wasted lots of $ on freight and grading losses to send the grain 200 plus km or we bought a grain cleaner, fortunately for us one of if not the biggest companies in the world of grain cleaning, flour mill machinery plus plus (google them they do just about every food processing gear including chocolate), Buhler just happened to have one of their TAS 152A-2 cleaners in the country, sitting 50km away in Nairobi, it is made in Germany and the quality is beautiful.
We have set it up temporally for now but when we finish building our grain store/shed we will move it to be able to clean direct from the 25t delivery pit and into the store/shed, it will clean wheat at 50 to 60t per hour so it will allow us to clean all our grain straight of the harvester.
As we deliver direct to end users we need to provide a clean product ready to mill or malt.
 

Barley Harvest Photos

We have been harvesting barley for about 10 days, slow going with the crop on the ground, currently yielding 3.7 t ha.
We are also harvesting the Mung Beans (Green Grams), we will put them through the cleaner tomorrow and bag into 50kg bags for the local market, will know the yield once we clean them as we did not weigh into the shed.

Obama called, I said we were too busy with harvest for him to visit

Photos from our major 2015 field day

Click on any photo to expand, team Ausquest did a great job on the day, thanks also to Annie, Grace and her crazy friend Tara + the two small boys of course. Just on 80 people attended.

Chickpeas in the trials

These are Kabuli Chickpeas, I have been very impressed with their lack of disease, they are podding up well, probably a bit on the low side for mechanical harvesting although not terrible.
 

Yellow beans in trials looking good

The Top Photo is of Yellow beans on the left and Faba beans on the right, the Yellow bean plants are only about 40cm high but loaded with pods (bottom photo) we would have to hand windrow them and then machine harvest with the Combine if we grow them commercially as the pods are very low.
Wait and see how they yield.

Veiw from the farm office

The most advanced barley (in the photo) is at my best guess around 5 weeks from harvest, the Mung beans are podding up well, we have had 214mm of rain in crop in the crop above  and about 165mm in the Mung beans and dry planted barley which is still at the grain fill stage.   

No Chemical Resistance with Group P (people)

We have about 120/ 130 casuals hand weeding 160 ha of Mung Beans, we planted them dry and although we had a grass control option in the form of a herbicide we did not have any broadleaf weed control options.
They are doing a good job, it is all paid by the row, thank goodness for straight rows.
(Click on photo for a better view) 

Spraying Barley (Dry planted 57 days since emergence)

Yesterday I was applying 10kg ha of Potassium Sulphate together with 250mls of Tilt, barley was planted dry with a full profile (1meter of wet soil) but about 15 cm of dry soil on top, this crop has had 155mm of rain since emergence. It is looking very strong although time will tell.
I would estimate there was approximately 180/200mm of PAW (plant available water) in the soil at the time of emergence, add to this the 155mm of "in crop" rainfall of 155mm =335mm less 110mm to allow for evaporation (French/Schultz method) and we have 225mm available for grain fill.
The general range of WUE of wheat and Barley (water use efficiency) is 10kg per mm of grain to 20kg per mm of grain.(can be a bit higher or lower)
So with 225mm available for grain fill at 10kg per mm = 2.25 t ha (2250kg per ha) poor WUE
or at 20kg per mm it would yield 4.5 t ha (4500kg per ha) which would be a good WUE.
Only time will tell. 

Planting Mung Beans

We are just planting our latest 160 ha of Mung Beans (Green Grams), we have another 160 ha we planted dry about 50 days ago, they are up and look OK, we split the planting so we could spread out harvest as well as a bit of risk management, the earlier planted should do better (maybe) although the latest Mungs are being planted into a meter of moisture, (about 180mm of plant available water at my estimate)
Wait and see, we have put 10kg ha of potassium sulphate on as a foliar spray twice to try and get the flowering and pod set more even, the varieties we have tend to flower over a longer period than I would like, this obviously results in some pods being fully ripe/dry with others still very green, this is from my limited knowledge on Mung beans a bit of their nature although we are doing what we can to tighten this period up. 

Trials, looking tidy !

We have our two major field days coming up in early June, one for commercial farmers and support people and the other for small farmers who live locally, our trial site is looking good, we are missing Tim our Canadian, things happened a lot smother while he ran the trials.

A freind from Nairobi in the Barley,the crop is pushing into head

Click on photo for larger view

John and Wiz playing in the Barley

Barley at around day 63 from emergence, coming into head