First Quarter 2025 Update

We usually expect to have a dry and slightly slower start to the year, however this year the farm has stayed fairly green and we’ve been busy with some new investments to improve the farm’s efficiency – water and getting the new workshop ready! 

Crops 

This quarter, we haven’t had much growing, but we did plant a cover crop consisting of millet, pigeon peas and cowpeas, which went into an old grass field. 

Aside from this, we were processing last year’s harvest. The beans were sorted and packed for sale, we had fantastic germination results: KATB1 98% and Chelelang 99%. 

We were also sorting and packing our maize seed crop (WE5135), which is a water efficient (WE) and MLND tolerant variety from AATF. We haven’t done this in a while, and it’s always tricky to get a high quality maize seed crop without breakage of kernels. We succeeded and received excellent gemination results of 99%. 

We had some small trials going on this quarter – cowpeas, pigeon peas, maize and potatoes – just as these were looking particularly good, Loloto the elephant decided they would make a nice snack! 

Livestock 

The livestock continue to perform well, we’re delighted to see the AI calves from last year growing and living up to their promised traits. This quarter the cows diets were supplemented by silage, and we also had to vaccinate for Foot and Mouth disease (FMD).

The sheep thrive in the dry(ish!) season! They love the drier weather and we were able to send 24 to Choice Meats. 

Life on the Farm 

In a very exciting development, we have been busy piping water around the farm! Gone are the days of tanks and a bowser! We now have piped water to all of the main cattle troughs, and taps around the workshop, garage and dairy! It makes such a huge difference having readily available water everywhere we need it. 

Lototo came back from his Christmas and New Year break on the 14th January, he has a slightly broken tusk, but otherwise seems in good health and has been up to his usual antics!