Finished planting Sorghum

We finished planting the 400ha field of Sorghum late Wed night and then planted a barley trial the following morning, we had just changed over to wheat for some trials when the heavens opened and we had about 10mm of rain. This was mainly good as the whole of the commercial crop had been planted although I still have five or six hours of trials to plant, some paddock scale, one to a few hectares and some hand planted with material given to us by an NGO funded by the Gates foundation. One sorghum variety they gave us was only 800 seeds. I will try and plant them and the other trials today if it is dry enough.
As we are leading into what is called the long rains we have planted on a "solid" configuration of 75cm (30 inch) rows, I have also increased the plant population, I suspect that the temperatures lend themselves to a higher population to that which we have previously planted.
I also used a bit more fert at planting, 60kg of DAP and 25kg of SOP. I am considering flying some nitrogen on as well as I want to plug all the holes in the yield bucket I can.

Woops

Our night driver had a little accident, early this morning. No great harm, only to my heart.

Harvest Photos

 Top Photo,Our grain shed is not finished so we have had to use ground dumps, we load with the telehandler which has a large grain bucket.
Above photo, badly lodged sorghum with Lukenya in the background.

Some of the 150 people gleaning behind the harvester. The numbers keep growing.

Still Harvesting

We increased the number of people on the hand harvesting (Gleaning) crew last week, we have now 37 teams of three. They have picked up and hand threshed just about 50 ton to date, probably another 50 to go. My best estimate is that we are missing about 150 to 200kg per ha. The field is 600ha so wait and see I guess. One of our fellows drives around with the land cruiser and picks up the bags of sorghum, they then take the 10bags or so and the group leaders (about five per trip) they weight the bags then send them up the auger to add to the ground pile.
The machine harvesting should be complete in two or so days and then we will swap the auto steer into the tractor and plant the other 400ha field. There is good moisture under it and with the long rains just about here we will plant sorghum dry fairly shallow.

Gleaners at Work

We have at present, 48 people hand harvesting lost heads behind the machine harvester, we are paying piece work and the people are making about double the casual rate per day, good for us, good for them, they pick up the lost heads of sorghum and then thrash and clean it and then our fellow picks the bags up in the field, weighs it and take a ton at a time back to our grain heap where he puts it up the auger and it is added to the pile.
It works out that we get about 66% and the people 33%, good deal all round. The plan is to go to 100 people on Monday. The Gleaners are able to collect and clean about 300kg per team of three per day.
The Kenyan varieties lodge (fall over) really easily and so our losses are somewhere around 200kg ha.
The Kenyan presidential elections have been a big focus for the past week, lots of people talking about it. (click on the photo to enlarge)

Twiga in the Sorghum

I was harvesting yesterday and saw these five Giraffe (Twiga) walking across the field, they seem to enjoy Sorghum, I have seen them quite a lot lately enjoying a chew.

Beautiful Photo of Grace and John

Click to enlarge 

Good Decication Job

Our airial spraying operator took this photo of the decication job on some sorghum (done 8 days earlier), he has his plane set up with six micron airs with a 16m swath, we did this job at 10 liters of total volume as a bit of an experiment, droplet size of 250 to 300 micron. An Australian framer friend (Martin) always says that water is a contamination to round up. In Australia I could never get the quality of job that we seem to get time after time here in Kenya. I think using the small plane that fly's slower than the big turbins may have something to do with the good results, due to the pattern that seems very even..(plus a fussy pilot) You can click on the photo to get a better look

Masai Farmer Field Day

I had a group of 28 Masai come to look at our farm today, probably one of the most left field visit I have had, the top photo is of some of the group looking over the harvester.
The below photo shows our ladies (10 of) who are harvesting the trial areas by hand. they have to date harvested two 4 ha chickpea blocks, and two 4 ha maize blocks. The ladies standing are a part of the group who were visiting.
One thing I very much tried and emphasize was that the machinery is not anything special and on the scale that they were farming they actually had many advantages over us. The last thing we want is to have smallholders thinking it is only possible with machines.

I managed late this afternoon to harvest a sample of sorghum from our latest 600ha, moisture 12.5 so into it tomorrow.

Winners are Grinner's

James played a Hockey grand final yesterday (Monday) in Nairobi. They played at the only synthetic field in Kenya. I went to support my boy, he played really well and they won 3 to 0. I left there at 5.30pm and arrived home at 8pm, long time in traffic for 40km. 

Link to interview in Canada

http://www.realagriculture.com/2013/02/making-the-move-from-australia-to-kenya-stuart-barden/

This is a link to an interview I gave at a conference I recently spoke at in Canada. We desiccated 200ha of Sorghum (with R/U) from our current 600ha and plan to do the rest in the next 10days or so.
Also planning to plant the other 400ha this week coming.

Crop Progress

This is Gadam white Sorghum, the fellow who grew this seed has grown 6 to 7 t ha of this variety, that is about as good as it can yield. Ours is not even enough for that type yield, wait and see. I expect harvest to be around mid March for this crop.
We are planting the other field of 400ha next week, we have about 50 to 60cm of sub soil moisture, the "long rains" as they are known are in April first half of May, I am trying to line this crop up to get the best use of any in crop rainfall. 

Annie in the snow

Canadian Trip

Annie and I are just back in Kenya after being in Western Canada, I spoke at a conference called farm Tech, all went well (I think). Thank you to the Canadians we met for the great hospitality shown to us both.

Swimming outdoors at -12 Deg C

Annie and I spent the weekend with our Canadian friends in the Rocky Mountains. Had a dip in the pool one morning, note the snow in the background.
We have now traveled north about 4 hours to where the conference I am speaking at is being held, Annie and I went for a walk late this afternoon, it is so cold it hurt.

From Kenya to Canada - 20 deg C

First Day at the boys new School

 

 

Our little boys started a new school last week, they are enjoying it although they are getting very tired by the end of the week.
Above at the top is Hannah our daughter who is over here from Uni in Perth helping out, she has been a great help.

Crop Progress

This is Jake Lewis in the latest crop of sorghum, it is looking fantastic, we should hopefully be harvesting it by late March.

Tech Problems

Sorry about the lack of updates, for some reason I cannot upload photos to the blog??? I hope to work out why soon. Any suggestions gratefully received.
I have some good photos and so it is very frustrating.

First Load of Sorghum

Well, I was wondering if it would ever happen, only two truckloads harvested although I hope to get six trucks today, as we are still building our grain handling set up it all has to go straight on a truck.
The picture is of myself and my friend "O" as he is known.
 

Merry Christmas John

Click to play

Poping into head

This is me (Stuart) in need of a haircut in our latest sorghum crop, this is about 55 days since emergence, looks good to me. I planted the latest 600ha on a "solid" configuration as I thought we would get some in crop rain. Its a bit variable across the field although most of the crop would have had around 100mm since it was dry planted in late Oct.(it had a full moisture profile under the top 100mm of dry soil) 

First Kenyan Christmas

Boys and Bikes at Christmas

Christmas morning and the boys scored a push bike each, James our big boy is here helping Wisdom just before John came to grief.

Crop Progress

The Weighbridge is alive

Duncan our principle building contractor and his offsider read the first weight (my Prado) on the weighbridge.
Having a big concrete pour this week, we have 25t of cement powder to kick off the foundations to the grain shed, much much more needed. We are mixing it ourselves rather than getting ready mix. We have a 400lt mixer and it is earning its keep at present.
Harvest of the first sorghum has been a very frustrating story although some parts coming from Australia on Saturday morning should get us going.

Pa and Wizdom

Annie's Mum and dad are over staying with us at present, this photo is of Derik (Pa lamont) having a look over the newest sorghum planting with Wisdom his newest grandson. The crop is around 40 days from emergence and is just popping a head out here and there. 

Sorghum is growing well

The Previous photo of the Sorghum just emerging was taken on around the 10th of November so this is about 24days later than that photo, I am happy with the growth. We have had around 80mm since it was dry planting into a dryish topsoil in late October, the profile was full under that so the 80mm has consolidated the profile from top to bottom. Nov is on average the wettest month with an average of 90mm of rain. We actually had more like 60mm in November as the other 20mm fell last night (Dec)
December average is around 50mm and if we get another 30mm that would be heaps until hopefully a bit in Jan.With the cooler temps the plants in this environment seem to be very efficient on the water use. Time will tell though. Also the most recent 600 hectares was all planted on a solid configuration of 30 inch or 75cm rows,this was due to my view that we would recieve adequate in crop rain, wait and see.

Boys and Sorghum

The little boys came out to the farm with me this afternoon, both did some driving, only time on the road was went they crossed it.
I could'nt work out why wisdom (in the blue shirt) went very quite (top photo) I had said we were going to go "home" after checking the Sorghum, after asking him what was wrong he ask me if I was taking them back to the Childrens Home, the bottom photo is a couple of minutes after I reasured him he would always be our boy and that his home is with us.

James,John and Wisdom,three brothers

This Photo is of the three happy boys when John and Wisdom just arrived to start their new life with us, the darling boys had little backpacks on and all they had in the world was in them.
Annie had organized their room to be so welcoming with some special things like Teddy's to give them extra comfort.
Annie was at work teaching today and so I had the little boys, the Cummins mechanic comes first thing in the morning and so I hope we can have a win on the harvester engine issue.