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    Kir­inyaga sweet potato farm­ers re­sort to ir­rig­a­tion to main­tain yields

    Sweet potato Kirinyaga

    Sweet pota­toes farm­ers from Kir­inyaga County have re­sor­ted to sprink­ler ir­rig­a­tion sys­tem where water is dis­trib­uted by over­head high-pres­sure sprink­lers from a cent­ral loc­a­tion in the field in order to help them im­prove and main­tain their crop pro­duc­tion dur­ing this low rain­fall period.


    Kir­inyaga County alone pro­duces about 500 tons of sweet pota­toes every year. This is used to pro­duce flour, bak­ing and chips or even sold in their fresh state for food.


    However, the greatest chal­lenge re­mains avail­ab­il­ity of re­li­able water throughout the sea­son as most pro­duc­tion is rain-fed.
    Nel­son Ngaara is sweet potato farmer in Sagana, Kir­inyaga County. He says he has six sprink­lers in his one acre piece of sweet pota­toes land. He ir­rig­ate them once a week given they have over grown and their leaves and vines cov­er­ing the ground re­du­cing the rate of water lose through evap­or­a­tion.

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    “I ir­rig­ate my sweet pota­toes once a week now that they have over grown but when they are still young with their leaves not yet spread enough I sprinkle water twice to en­able roots de­vel­op­ment,” said Ngaara adding that the water he draws from River Tana has been of be­ne­fit to him and other farm­ers in the re­gion.


    He ex­pects between 40-50 bags of pota­toes from the land late Oc­to­ber when he will be har­vest­ing. His main mar­kets are Sagana centre and Kagio where traders from Nairobi come oc­ca­sion­ally to buy sweet pota­toes from them.


    Yields under sprink­ler sys­tem are up to 15% more than the drip sys­tem which can be at­trib­uted to more vig­or­ous growth due to root­ing of the vine nodes on the wet soil between the beds. Root qual­ity is su­per­ior to the tape sys­tem but weed growth is more of a prob­lem. A mini-sprink­ler sys­tem needs to be cor­rectly de­signed to give com­plete and even ground cover.

    Kenya’s po­ten­tial to pro­duce sweet potato for the ex­port mar­ket is high due to fa­vour­able soil and vine qual­ity plus water avail­ab­il­ity in pro­duc­tion areas. Sweet po­mato pro­cessing fact­ory can be loc­ated at Kagio be­cause of the area’s high pro­duc­tion of the pro­duce.


    Ex­perts say that root ma­tur­ity of sweet pota­toes can vary between vari­et­ies and root de­vel­op­ment is slower dur­ing cooler weather. Grow­ers need to mon­itor the de­vel­op­ment of roots with reg­u­lar checks of root size after 18 weeks. Mar­ket­able grades of roots are between 0.25 and 1 kilo­gram. If har­ves­ted at the cor­rect time, around 60-70% of total roots should be within this grade. If grown dur­ing the dry sea­son most vari­et­ies should be ready for dig­ging at about 20 -22 weeks from plant­ing. If left too long in the ground the roots can be­come over­size and un­mar­ket­able.


    “The eco­nomy of Kenya re­lies on Ag­ri­cul­ture. Eighty per­cent of the coun­try is arid or semi-arid. In the arid and semi-arid areas sus­tain­able ag­ri­cul­ture can only be achieved through well planned and op­er­ated ir­rig­a­tion. The Gov­ern­ment of Kenya has iden­ti­fied ir­rig­a­tion as an im­port­ant tool for im­prov­ing food self-suf­fi­ciency and en­han­cing house­hold in­comes in the rural sec­tor,” writes M.K. Gak­undi Gen­eral Man­ager, Small­holder Ir­rig­a­tion Scheme De­vel­op­ment Or­gan­iz­a­tion, Kenya in a FAO re­port.

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