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    Dry land crops to curb hun­ger and mal­nu­tri­tion de­veloped

            Sorghum.JPG

    Sorghum seeds. Photo: Oyugi Zablon

    Kenya Ag­ri­cul­tural & Live­stock Re­search Or­gan­iz­a­tion (KALRO) re­search­ers are com­ing up with in­di­gen­ous crop vari­et­ies which are high yield­ing, tol­er­ant to drought and rich in mi­cronu­tri­ents like min­er­als and vit­am­ins which are good for nor­mal meta­bol­ism, growth and phys­ical well-be­ing.

    Under a pro­gramme dubbed Arid and Semi-arid Lands (ASALs) Pro­ductiv­ity, the ex­perts are fo­cused to im­prove the in­di­gen­ous crop vari­et­ies to help re­gions which face hun­ger caused by long droughts and un­pre­dicted rain­fall.

    “Our con­tinu­ous sur­veys in­dic­ates that un­avail­ab­il­ity of high qual­ity seeds and that non-ex­ist­ent of these seeds in many other areas other than some areas where on-farm tri­als were being con­duc­ted has been a major con­trib­utor to low yields in small-scale farms in ASALs,” said Ben Musy­oki Re­search Tech­no­lo­gist at KALRO’s Arid and Range Lands Re­search In­sti­tute dur­ing Nairobi In­ter­na­tional Trade Fair.

    KALRO Katumani has there­fore pre-re­leased over 50 im­proved sorghum, fin­ger-mil­let, cowpeas, pi­geon peas, beans and green grams vari­et­ies.

    READ ALSO: Sorghum emerges as crop of choice for dry­land farm­ers

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    Under green grams there are Ndengu Tosha KAT 00301, Bi­ashara KAT 00308, Karembo KAT 00309. These vari­et­ies takas 65-75 days to ma­ture and has abil­ity to yield up to between 1800-2100kg per hec­tare.

    Beans vari­et­ies in­clude An­gaza, Nyota and Meta Meta which take 75-84 days, 65-70 days and 75-84 days re­spect­ively to ma­ture. An­gaza can give 2000kg per hec­tare, Nyota pro­duces between 1400-2200kg per hec­tare and Meta Meta 2000kg per hec­tare.

    Pi­geon peas vari­et­ies are KAT PP 005, 006 and 008. Their ma­tur­ity period ranges between 130-150 days with ra­toon abil­ity to pro­duce not less than 1800kg per acre under proper ag­ro­nomic prac­tices. These is also Am­ar­anth KAT 001 and 114 which take three months to ma­ture and can give 500kg of pro­duce per acre.

    Ac­cord­ing to Musy­oki these im­proved in­di­gen­ous crop vari­et­ies are under cer­ti­fic­a­tion by Kenya Plant Health In­spect­or­ate Ser­vice (KEPHIS) and will soon be avail­able for farm­ers. “Our seed are under ap­proval and once the pro­cess is through, the seeds will be re­leased to the mar­ket,” said Musy­oki.

     

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