What a busy few months it has been!! April, May, June are always a little hectic with the farm coming back to life following the long rains. This year we were fortunate to not have too harsh a dry season, and everything has been looking and feeling very alive!
Crops
This year we have our largest ever acreage of bean seed, this is to cater to the continually growing demand for high quality Leldet KAT B1, and Chelelang seed. We went in with a higher plant density than usual, and the dividend of this was fantastic weed control with minimal chemical or mechanical interventions. The higher density was achieved by our new Piket planter.
We also planted some more beans for breeding material, which will enable us to sustain supply in years to come.
We have two maize crops, one for seed – WE5135, and were pleased to have passed all KEPHIS inspections and the other as a commercial trial. For the uninitiated, maize seed is a particularly cumbersome crop because breeding “male” with “female” requires removing tassels from all of the female plants, so that their silks only receive pollen from male plants. Luckily we have decades of practice on our side!
We were particularly grateful for technical support from ICS Africa, who made sure our new 6 row Monosem planter hit the ground running! This planter gave us great seed placement which resulted in an excellent crop stand.
We’re also growing Boma Rhodes grass and E6518 sorghum for seed, hay and silage. The hay is crucial for cash flow and the silage enables us to comfortably keep the cows flourishing come the next dry season.
Lastly (it has indeed been busy!!) we have several different legume crops aside from beans this year, most notably, Cow peas (Kunde) and Pigeon Peas (Mbaazi). The last of these we were able to plant with the Piket minimum tillage planter, which allows us to reduce even further the disturbance of our soils, promoting soil health and biodiversity.
Ooops that’s not all! We have a whole load of small trials – potatoes, maize, sorghum, beans, cow peas, soya and pigeon peas…but keep an eye out for a separate, upcoming post with more info on those!
Livestock
Do the cows and sheep take a back seat while we’re busy with getting arable crops in? No!! They continue to thrive, this quarter we sent another delivery to Choice Meats, and received our usual standard of the highest possible quality.
We’ve been more proactive than ever in implementing a controlled grazing regime, which balances the best nutrition for cattle while limiting the destruction of the grass to ensure it can recover as quickly as possible.
This was complemented by our additional investment in a new salt mix, which is tailored to the mineral needs of our cattle.
Life on the farm
Alongside all this activity, all the wild things that make the farm so special are flourishing too!! While we rarely see the creatures we share the farm with, like this Aardvark, it’s lovely to know they are all there!
Rajwera Farm 