On the 19th of July, we hosted our first Field Day on the farm in a long time! This wonderful event brought together over 100 local farmers from Ol Rongai giving us the chance to showcase all the exciting developments we’re working on!
As part of the day’s attractions people were able to see some of our latest crop trials, including cowpeas, potatoes, five varieties of beans, sorghum, maize and pigeon peas. We also had small packs on sale, crucially these enable farmers to try small quantities of new crops and varieties without taking financial risks.
We were also joined by external exhibitors, including KEPHIS – the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service, who discussed the importance of avoiding fake seed on the market. As well as by CKL Africa, who showcased their wide range of animal health solutions, and Greenlife Africa who are experts in crop protection.
CKL exhibiting their products.
In addition to the crops we showcased, we demonstrated our silage production process, using our E6315 sorghum variety.
Janey showing off our silage sorghum
In a bid to increase discussions about the importance of healthy soils, we also demonstrated production of dynamic liquid fertiliser with the new Johnson Sue system we’ve been implementing.
Philip showcasing our Johnson-Su composting set up
As the driving force at the inception of Leldet seed was the marginal conditions we in Ol Rongai face, it was wonderful to bring together a group of enthusiastic and expert neighbour farmers to share our vision of what successful and sustainable farming in these conditions can be.
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.
Chelelang breeder seed growing for crops in future years
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.
Maize planted into last year’s stubble, retraining soil integrity and moisture
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.
Grass for seed, hay and silage
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.
Cowpeas, not something we plant every year, but fantastic for our crop rotation
Planting Pigeon Pea with the new Piket planter
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!
David and Harry inspecting crops
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.
Controlled grazing, the grass on the right is protected as the cows graze on the left
This was complemented by our additional investment in a new salt mix, which is tailored to the mineral needs of our cattle.
Distributing tailored made salt mix
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!
Ordinarily we expect the farm to dry off following the short rains, however, this quarter we have had plenty of rain so everything is still wet and green!
Crops
We’ve seen a strong demand for yellow beans (KAT B1) this season, we’re not entirely sure why, but we’re adjusting our planning to account for this change in demand. (Yellow beans are a low flatulence bean varity!) Our beans planted in August were successfully harvested, though the wet weather and cloudy days were a challenge during drying.
Cleaned and sorted KAT B1 beans.
This year was the first year in 5 years that we planted a maize seed crop for Leldet Seeds. Seed maize is a tricky, labour intensive business and requires detasseling (removing tassels from “female” lines) and threshing by hand in order to ensure high quality seed. We’ve battled with the elephant and the pigs this quarter to keep our crop safe, and have had a successful harvest. This WE 5135 seed has passed all of it’s KEPHIS inspections, it is an MLND tolerant variety and will be on sale in 2025.
Pig damage in the maize.
A very exciting update for us, we received a new Monosem planter, which will enable us to tighten up on our controlled traffic regime (where tractor tracks are restricted as much as possible, which is all part of our move to really take care of and grow our soils.
The new monosem planter.
As part of this effort, Nigel and Janey took part in a training program with Nicole Masters, a soil expert from New Zealand, who discussed best practices for soil management in commercial agriculture.
Healthy living soil is the soul of any farm.
Livestock
We sent 47 steers to Choice Meats this quarter, the quality and build of our cows is consistently at the premium grade. We’re proud to be able to sustain this high quality within a rotation that takes care of livestock, crop land and nature.
Happy steers after a day of grazing and an evening treat of some silage.
To prepare us for the dry season, we have been making plenty of grass and sorghum silage, this boosts our milk production – for sale and for calves, and ensures that all of the animals maintain good condition through the dry period.
Silage making!
Life on the Farm
At the farm, we’re constantly maintaining the tractors and machinery that enable us to efficiently grow crops and serve the livestock. To professionalize this aspect of our activities, we’ve invested this quarter in a workshop, which will enable us to do dust free maintenance and have new upgraded stores for tools and spares. This is all part of our effort to foster an efficient and even safer workplace.
A few of our team in front of the new workshop.
Looking towards Christmas, we’ll be selling deluxe Christmas trees for Christmas 2025.
Thinking about Christmas 2025 already?
Lamu
We’re continuing to invest in Lamu, with more trees planted and a new Reverse Osmosis machine installed. This will reduce our reliance solely on rain water, and open up the possibility for new activities to maximise the utility of the space.
A new desalination system from Saltech.
The mangroves we planted earlier in the year are thriving, and are hopefully the start of rebuilding an incredible rich habitat on the beach.
Mangrove seedlings now established on the beach at Mnazi Mmoja.
What another wet quarter! We’ve been blessed with more rain, our dams are full, the crops are thriving and the livestock have masses of grazing.
A wet quarter on the farm!
Crops
We planted another crop of beans for the short rains, this includes KAT B1, KK8 and Chelelang. This is critical to replacing our stocks as bean seed sales in the south rift (Mulot, Bomet area) were strong this quarter, with smallholder farmers making the most of the extra El Nino rain we received this year.
Beans growing after a Boma rhodes grass crop.
The rain was a mixed blessing though, as there is plenty of forage across the country (especially since livestock numbers haven’t quite recovered since the last drought) so hay sales were very poor.
This quarter we also harvested grass seed from our Boma rhodes fields.
Stooks of Boma rhodes grass seeds.
Livestock
Our Jerseys have settled in nicely and are producing great milk, we are in the process of setting up systems to professionalize the dairy, for now we are selling milk through our local Ol Rongai Milk Cooperative.
One of the first new Jersey calves born on the farm
Despite vaccinating all of our cows, we had quite a bad bout of foot and mouth that, unusually for us, especially affected the cattle’s feet. Ordinarily we experience most foot and mouth symptoms in the mouth, which we are accustomed to treating. We nursed the affected livestock back to health as quickly as possible, though the rain and muddy conditions were an added challenge.
This quarter we sent a lorry of lambs to Choice Meats, we’re proud that all of our lambs received the premium grade. The sheep are all grass fed as part of our rotation, this comes through in the high quality of meat!
Life on the farm
We’ve been investing further in water infrastructure, this will be key to the farm’s resilience in future especially during drought years and will reduce our reliance on trucking water on the farm.
Meeting a cow for the first time!
Our latest additions are some ridgeback puppies, who aren’t too sure about cows yet, but we know they’ll be getting along in no time!
The rains have come and we’ve been busy this quarter!
The whole country faced severe flooding in April and May, we were not immune as several catchments on the farm are fed by drainage from surrounding roads. Our main dam was full for the first time, but did not overflow.
Our dam, full of water but fortunately not over flowing
We were also really pleased to see no runoff from any of our own fields, unlike over grazed areas on neighbouring farms, proving our concept for crop rotation resulting in healthier soils able to maximise water retention.
Our field are sodden, but there wasn’t any run off or erosion due to the soil management regime, where lots of last year’s biomass is left on the field.
At the same time, we have been laying pipes for distributing water to cattle troughs and other points around the farm, this will reduce the cost in distributing water.
A new pipeline to distribute borehole water across the farm.
Crops
April always means planting, planting, planting! And we’ve been busy! This season as part of our usual rotation and in anticipation of good rains, we have planted seed maize, beans, sorghum and grass. We were flat out managing field preparation, planting and subsequent scouting and pest management.
A crop of fresh Boma Rhodes grass.
The crops are all doing well, with the maize seed crop ready for detasseling in June. We continue to monitor wildlife threats, especially reed buck and guinea fowl which love to eat shoots, and wild pigs which will eat freshly planted seeds and small cobs.
Our maize seed crop, post detasseling with males on the left and females on the right.
The beans harvested in Q1 have met our consistently high quality, with KEPHIS returning 99% and 98% for Kat B1 and KK8 germination tests respectively.
Livestock
We’ve had an exciting development this quarter, bringing in a new herd of dairy cattle from the Hairy Dairy. These beautiful Jersey cattle will join our existing dairy cows as we develop this aspect of our livestock program.
Hairy Dairy cows, on their way to the farm!
In another first for us, we’re going to start breeding from one of our own AI bred bulls, this young Charolais cross should fill out and provide great genetics for our beef herd.
Our first AI-bred bull being used in our general beed breeding herd.
Additionally, we’ve been managing Foot and Mouth alerts in the area, with a vaccination program for all cows.
Life on the Farm
Loloto left us again, giving us time to fix fences and collect trees he has knocked over, we hope he’ll be safe until he returns.
In 2023, we shared information on our efforts to clear Lantana, an invasive shrub that smothers pasture, we recently commissioned a wood chipper, which will enable us to further deal with this threat while producing mulch returning biomass to the soil.
Cows happily grazing in pasture that is growing in a field cleared of Lantana
Lamu
While we were planting on the farm, we were also planting at the coast! This year we planted 500 mangroves along the beach at Mnazi Mmoja, in line with broader efforts in Lamu county to conserve mangrove cover to reduce beach erosion and create more habitat for marine life.
Mangroves planted in front of Mnazi Mmoja.
We’ve also been planting fruit trees for several years now, and these are starting to bear (delicious!) fruit!
This year we’ve been off to a busy start, following the droughts in 2022 and 2023, we’ve been relieved to have had only a modest dry season, with a total of 150mm of rain in the first three months of the year.
Patchy rain kept us reasonable green through the dry season.
We’ve now transitioned to using our borehole water for livestock and general operations, however as it’s not fit for human consumption we’re still using rainwater for all our drinking needs. In 2024 we aim to pipe the borehole water to all the main usage points, especially cattle troughs.
Crops
We’ve had an exciting time with our beans this quarter, harvesting, dressing and packing seeds crops, with more in the field. We’re especially proud that our seeds produced outstanding germination results from KEPHIS: KK8 99%, KAT B1 97%, Chelelang 98%.
Our amazing Leldet beans!
These first class seeds are being introduced to new markets, through a field day in March in Timau where we reached farmers from as far afield as Meru and Maralal. We’ve introduced new packaging, including a new 1kg packet, to meet the demand of cash strapped farmers as we all adapt to the challenging economic conditions. Our sales throughout Mulot and Bomet remain strong.
Leldet at the Timau Field Day, introducing our quality seeds to new farmers.
We’ve also been harvesting grass seed from our Boma Rhodes grass crops, and making hay. However, the light dry season has suppressed the hay market, which is a challenge for cash flow going into the pre-planting field preparation season.
Boma Rhodes grass, cut for baling.
Field preparation has been going on in the lead up to Easter, and the expected long rains. We have bean and sorghum crops to harvest, and then we’ll be aerating fields that are going to be planted coming out of the grass phase in our rotation.
Livestock
Our cows and sheep have come through the dry season well, we’ve been topping up their grazing with silage in their bomas in the evening. The AI program has been ongoing, and we’ve welcomed our first AI Jersey calf.
Our first Jersey AI Calf
Other work has included livestock chipping, in order to improve our records for better breeding and tracking for more productive and healthy herds. We’ve been keeping up with our consistent provision of beef cattle to choice meats, and our cows continue to rank at the highest quality.
Our cows making it through the dry season in great condition!
We have faced some disease challenges this quarter, in large part due to the influx of cattle from a wide area onto a neighbouring farm, resulting in increased disease and pest – especially tic – load, and unfortunately some casualties. We’re continuing to build capacity within the team to recognize, diagnose and treat issues as soon as possible to maximise the welfare of the livestock.
Life on the Farm
Loloto the elephant is back from his Christmas holidays, as ever, we’re pleased to have him back, but a little less thrilled to be dealing with the constant fence, tree and crop damage. We’ve had challenges this quarter keeping the farm safe for the wildlife we share the space with, especially from poachers who continue to set snares catching birds, hares and small antelopes, and cut down trees for charcoal production.
Hares caught by poachers using snares on the farm.
We’ve been planting more trees, trying to make use of the borehole water to establish some fruit trees and other indigenous varieties.
New fruit trees planted on the farm!
Lastly, we’ve slowly been building our workshop, so that onsite maintenance can be optimised. So much of our time is spent fixing tractors, planters, sprayers and other equipment, we want to ensure this can be done as seamlessly as possible.
All in all, we’re looking forward to a productive 2024, mindful of the increasingly challenging economic conditions we’re facing alongside our team, neighbours, suppliers and customers.
Rajwera Farm 