The rainy season looks like its over as it hasn’t rained in since June started. There are two rainy seasons here, the bigger one that starts in September and last though December and another one that runs March though May which just finished. Its also getting somewhat cooler. It gets down to like 68 degrees F at night now and only up in the 80's in the day. I love it now that it isn’t so darn hot. The locals are wearing coats in the morning since its so “cold”. Its all what you’re used to I guess. Water is getting to be a problem here now as the rains stopped. There are very few rivers up north here on the plateau. They save water in cisterns, either big village ones and small house ones collecting rainwater. That's what I have at the house here. Eventually they buy water trucked in. I'd like to drill one day for water, I hear its around 230 ft down so you need a good well rig to get it.
The potato crop is maturing and the first planted are going down. The potatoes themselves now need 3 to 4 weeks to set their skin so we can harvest them. Now that’s its drying up this will be perfect for a good harvest. We’ve been going around with the guys to look for problems and dig up plants to check the tubers in the different varieties.
Some of the early favorites have been overshadowed by other now. Some like the Granolas, Keuka Golds and Chieftains have bigger sets (number of tubers per plant) which will give them better yields. There was never any big pest problems, just a few big tomato hornworm like caterpillars that are dramatic looking, but few in number and these small yellow larva with red spines on them that I was told will sting you - I didn’t test this out.
Not sure what those were, but they were sporadic as well. The diseases were only a little blight in a few varieties and other none. The isolation here really helps. We could really produce some good seed with an occasional US certified seed purchase to renew the stock. One of the purposes of the farms is to produce food for the school lunch program that started IPHD’s work here in the Congo, another is to show how large scale mechanized farm can work here and I want another function to be working with the local farmers to try some small patches of crops working with us and using the improved seed we can provide. There is another program we are working with that rents out tractors to work the ground, but that alone can have its issues. In my experience when you jump from small hand worked subsistence plots to commercial Ag you have to jump all in.
Just working the ground by renting tractors with the same yields just increases your costs and with the same yields profits will go down. Improved seeds, some fertilizer (be it organic or granular as phosphate is a big issue here) and I believe herbicide. I know the organic guys out there will complain, but the grassy weeds like yellow nutsedge and satintail grass are just very difficult to cultivate out with their roots and bulbs that regrow rapidly. Anyway that’s the plan for next season to grow some cooperative plots with a few farmers with each putting in some inputs including some purchases by the locals. Nothing like cash down to get good cooperation. We went over the costs and returns on the local crops and they are making so little now on their crops.
The dry ban crops are looking really good. Flowering and putting on pods now. They are bush types and the locals are really excited about how fast and productive they are compared to the pole type beans grown here locally. I’m hoping they’ll finish up good. The production will go for seed and right into the school lunch program feeding 300,000 kids.
No combine here yet so we’ll have to harvest them by hand this first season. Good thing there is only 13 HA (32 Acres). All you need is a stick and a tarp to harvest them and a basket and some wind to clean them up. We put some innoculum on the seeds and it worked good as there is good Rhizobium bacteria nodules on the roots that are pink inside indicating they are fixing nitrogen for the crop.
We have to get a three year rotation going here of a cereal crop, a legume followed by a green manure crop to maintain and rebuild the organic matter, especially in the south where there is serious acid and aluminum toxicity problems.
During this slow time on the farm I have been going over equipment and tractor maintenance with the guys. In this humid climate rust is a big problem and you need to keep things well greased and oiled up. Spraying oil on the equipment with a small garden sprayer is one idea. I also think every tractor driver should be able to weld somewhat, so we’ve started welding classes. Just welding lines on old metal for now. I’m not the best welder, but better than most here as they tend not to get things hot enough. I’ve also been torturing them by setting up these tight courses with sticks for them to drive the tractors forward and reverse and not knock any of the sticks down. Good practice and amusing to watch at times.
Otherwise we’re starting on opening up a new farm up north. The other farms took over old government or abandoned farms that had some infrastructure. This new farm is now only open land with nothing. The land is beautiful without any yellow clay layer. I soil sampled three feet down and only found black soil with that great organic smell. We had to negociate it with the nearby villager and we marked out 4,500 HA (11,120 acres) before I said that’s too much. We’ll just start with 1,000 HA for now (2,500 acres). I used a handheld GPS to mark it, still was worried I would get lost and walking though the grass is really hard as its as tall as the cab in the tractor and has sharp edges. We scared up some Antelopes and Gazelles in the process. The locations of the farms are -02° 18' 46", +15° 26' 03" for the new Nkounou farm and -02° 21' 48", +14° 30' 19" for the Lekana farm. These are in the format google earth likes. You can search for Lekana by just entering Lekana, Plateaux, Republic of the Congo.
We’ll start with some corn and beans and a little potatoes, onions and tomatoes. They want to work a little with peanuts and manioc as well the most common local crops. With just a bit of fertilizer there crops double or more in yield. The new farm is about 2 ½ hours away from the Lekana farm. The southern farms are a plane ride and then hours of rough roads so I don’t visit them often. Right now I’m trying to organize getting the crop inputs and planting plan for the country. Were getting some peanut harvesting equipment and I really want to try some lentils as well as they are aggressive plants, good protein source and faster to cook than other beans saving firewood. Soybeans and corn are good, but they have to be processed a little before they can be used for human consumption.
Otherwise trying to get a potato seed cellar built in time to store some plant back seed for next season. We’re making it out of mud bricks. I changed the dimensions of the bricks they make which was a struggle and will make it two layers thick which I anticipate the builders will struggle with as well. In most places I've been they mix grass, straw or manure with the mud to make the bricks stronger. Here's its just the mud and when I suggested mixing in grass everyone was very upset. Change is hard.
Mud brick buildings are nice as they keep cool inside and hopefully can get the temp inside in the 60's for a few months potato seed storage. That’s key as we can’t afford to buy all our potato seed imported and lose some during to long voyage and difficult overland trip. Don’t worry potato producers we’ll still need new seed to replenish the stock.
I'll finish with some pics of the cool hand made cars the boys make here and drive around. They have working doors, steering systems and all the details. Hours went into their construction and the detail is great.They vary from just simple bottles with wheels to these elaborate ones.
