Crop Ideas: October 2013

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Congo Update 11 Oct 2013

Greetings from the Congo

We are in between seasons now and mostly just working ground. Both farms up north are going to be a lot bigger this season. They were going to be really big but all the seed isn’t going to arrive in time for this next season. It’s a really battle to get everything ordered, the containers filled, put on the ocean ships and then released form the port here in time. Then there is the in country transport over bad roads slow and costly. Lots of logistics. Right now its corn, soybeans, dry beans and potatoes again for Oct/Nov planting. Got 130 Ha(320 acres) cleared and worked at the new farm in Nkoumou, Ngo and 180 HA(445 acres) at the Lekana farm. We are also working ground for the local farmers for 40,000 CFA a HA (about $35/acre which is a subsidized rate). They are planting manioc mostly on this worked ground but some other crops as well. The tractor can do in an hour what it takes a month by and with a hoe.

Clearing the land is a battle with the small trees. The Plateaux area of Congo is a mix of small forests mixed with savanna area. The forest areas have many different species of tall trees. In the lower areas there are more forest areas and up north pure tropical jungle and swampy areas where there is much less people and wildlife. The savanna areas have small trees, but not the same species as the forest trees. I guess the burning keeps the forest areas from growing. Clearing these trees we used two big Russian tractors and pulled a big ocean ship chain between them to knock over the small trees and termite mounds. After that people collected the trees to carry out of the fields with the trailers. Pretty good expense all these day laborers. Corn and bean planters can take some branches, but potato and onion equipment cannot take all these stumps and branches - broke a lot of equipment that is hard to find parts.

Tractors and anchor chain knocking down small trees and termite hills

The potato seed isn’t holding all that well in the mud brick storage. Didn’t get my solar powered fans to vent out the field heat so it’s a little warm inside. Some varieties are doing better than others. I guess its something we had to learn in any case. The cold chain is non existent here in Congo so we need to select varieties that can take some abuse. I’ve seen many promising varieties that fall apart during storage so they get dropped. The Red Pontiac looked promising in the field, but just rotted fast in storage. Of the 16 varieties we started we are down to 4 - Cheiftain, Red LaSoda, Granola and Calwhite. Most of these were developed in southern area. I think potatoes have more day length sensitivity tan we thought earlier and the northern varieties cycled out too fast like the Ranger Russet. We are 2 degrees south of the equator so the days are 12 hours sun a day every day all year and crops waiting for long days will never get it.

Went on a trip to a private wildlife area where they are rehabilitating some rescued lowland Gorillas. Its in a valley with a river and scenic lake. It’s a little set up, but the gorillas are still wild. The US ambassador asked for a special close up visit and one of his party got attacked and almost killed the week before we visited. Didn’t see any Hippos in the river though. The Gorillas are separated from us by the river. Didn’t know gorillas can not swim so we were safe.

In past posts I talked about these hand made truck the boys make and take out for a drive. Well now some tractors have started to show up in the village complete with trailers.

Had one farm accident and had to take him to the clinic for some stitches. it could have been worse. |Its always a worry with people learning to use big machinery that people can get hurt bad. Farming and ranching is still a dangerous work. He got his stitches outside on the porch of the clinic with minimal disinfection, but did OK in the end.

Otherwise still building things here. Another storage building at Lekana for grain seeds and equipment parts. Also another water cistern to stare water from these new roofs of the potato cellar. At he new farm there is nothing so we are fixing up a old school building and building a new farm building. A lot of work as all the sand, gravel, rocks and water needs to be brought in. Gravel and rocks need to be brought from Brazzaville as there just isn’t any rocks on the plateau region. The boards they cut right near the farm from big trees in those patches of forest. They cut the boards all with chainsaws using this frame to hold the saw straight and the same thickness of cuts. The cut these big wide trees into sections 2 inches by over 3 feet wide and then into 4 x 4's, 4 x 4's, 2 x 8's and even 1 x 12 boards for building.

water cistern

Another storage building for dry seed and supplies

Cutting up a big tree into boards

This time of year the termites swarm where the males and new potential queens leave to mate and start new colonies. The people here cover the termite hills with plastic to capture these swarms and boil them to eat. They taste like burning grass. There are also other odd things in the market at times like palm grubs. The diet in the countryside is mostly manioc with peanuts, local greens, bracken fern fiddlenecks, dried fish and beans and occasionally some bushmeat. The fruits are starting again. There is avocado, pineapple and mango now and the safu trees are getting full. A lot of things are blooming now during the dry season. The rains are just staring now. It time to plant soon.

Capturing termites

Palm grubs about 3 inches long and live catfish at the market

Some flowers in bloom now

Congo Update 28 Aug 2013

Greeting from the Congo

Harvest is over mostly which is nice. Yields were low and a lot of varieties we tried didn’t work very well at all, but we learned a lot and more importantly the new tractoristes have learned a lot about working with and maintaining the farm machinery and growing a crop in a large mechanized modern setting. In development you can build a lot of things but if people are not trained things fall apart fast when the expat leaves. Too often not enough effort is budgeted in projects in the local people and more in things you can make a show of. The yield varied a lot but it was obvious were the weed control was poor the potato yield suffered, especially where there was a lot of bracken fern. Bracken fern has a known allelopathic effect on other plants thus it can dominate its environment by suppressing the competition.

We also grew a little watermelon for a trial and it did really well and was good eating. Most of the fruits here a sour as many of the local vegetable. I’m not sure if the acid soils leads to sour plants, but the watermelon was nice an sweet. Grew a little carrots, onions, cucumbers and tomatoes. Got a pneumatic small vegetable seeder ordered as well as some seed to plant big acres of onions, carrots and watermelon in the future.

We have three big challenges next season to increase the yields as I see it: better ground preparation, better weed control and more timely planting. With the big Russian tractors and big Brazilian disks ground preparation will be better. Since the tractor drivers are better trained I hope they can plant straighter so we can cultivate the potatoes twice. Last season we had to give up the second one as we were taking out too many potatoes in the process. The guys picked up on the cultivator blight name pretty fast. Those driving practice courses those staked paths should help. Since yellow nutsedge is the big challenge and can not be effectively cultivated |I did some research and found very few herbicides that control sedges, but there are some. I get some Sandea (halosufuron) for rice, beans and corn and Dual (Metolachor) for the potatoes, vegetables, onions, soybeans and peanuts). Finally we should be more prepared to plant in time the next time. Last season I arrived here and the potato seed arrived at the same time without a good place to store it and the ground was not worked and new workers and lack of appropriate machinery it was a wonder we got anything.

One last thing to improve is the fertilizer. Tropical soil with high rainfall usually have very poor soils which is counterintuitive as things look so lush but the nutrients are stored in the plants as the high rainfall washes out the nutrients from the soil. The soil tests show lower levels than I’ve even seen in most nutrients except potassium that is ok. Soil acidity up north is not good, but not in the 4 range like down south where aluminum toxicity is a serious issue. Applying lime is the usual solution to acid soils, but its expensive here and internal transport is also very expensive and unreliable so in the long run you need to find a solution to the soils that doesn’t involve apply large amounts of unsustainable inputs. IN the past they have applied NPK 15-15-15 which is what most people do as a default - throw a little of everything at it and hope for the best. I got some DAP ordered which is 18-46-0 so more of the needed phosphorus, no unneeded potassium and this fertilizer is not going to add to the acidity problem like other types. Crops that need more nitrogen like Corn we can just add some Urea.

I’m getting a little technical now, enough for now.

Traditionally people grow a few potatoes in this area by first clearing the land and oiling all the roots and stems and grass in a pile and burning it. This burning releases all the stored potassium and phosphorus in the roots and grass which the potatoes need. The soil turns red after the burning because the heat also burns off the organic matter and nitrogen in the soil as well. This process works for this season, but is very destructive in the long run. If you have a lot of free ground it works, but large farms can not be started in a new location every year so they need new processes. Then squash in planted on the edge and potatoes on theses small hills.

At the end of harvest was the 15th of August - Independence day here. Every year the President picks one village to pour a lot of money to turn into a City. Puts in roads, new government buildings, street lights, drainage and showy things like the over the top full size sports stadium complete with night lights. The odd thing is with water being such a problem up north drinking water wasn’t on the list of projects. This year it was in Djambala which is 40 minutes from the potato farm and 2013 was the year of the potato so we had a part at the celebrations. There is a parade for the president. The farm guys marched in the parade along with one of the big tractors and a trailer with1 ton of potatoes (literally) on the new wide boulevard. They didn’t want a white guy in the parade, but I did meet the presidents wife earlier and gave her potatoes. There was many groups marching along with some traditional Teke groups and these clowns.