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    Ve­get­able farm­ers, who lose up to 50 per cent of their har­vest to spider mites, can wipe out the pest using its bio­lo­gical enemy and re­l­at­ive, Real IPM Phyto­sei­ulus.

    Phyto­sei­ulus  per­similis, is a mite that feeds on all stages of the spider mites, there­fore, an ap­pro­pri­ate and sus­tain­able ap­proach to deal­ing with the pest without in­ter­fer­ing with the en­vir­on­ment, Isaac Guda, a Real IPM Kenya eco­lo­gical and ag­ro­nom­ical ex­pert said.

    “One phyto­sei­ulus feeds on at least five adults and 10 eggs per day. In two to three days after ap­plic­a­tion, a farmer would start see­ing the res­ults,” Guda said.

    After ap­plic­a­tion, the pred­at­ory mites quickly re­pro­duce to col­on­ise the leaf, there­fore, of­fer­ing con­tinu­ous crop pro­tec­tion by pred­a­tion.

    After reach­ing the eco­nomic threshold, the losses are dev­ast­at­ing and hardly re­vers­ible.

    Ac­cord­ing to a study pub­lished on the Re­search Gate, an on­line schol­arly re­source centre, mites have been doc­u­mented to cause more than half losses of to­mato yields.

    By the sixth, ninth, and 12th week of spider mite in­fest­a­tion, yields pro­duc­tion re­duces by 0.233kg, 0.689kg and 1.624kg re­spect­ively per to­mato stem.

    Apart from mint­ing out the nu­tri­ents from the leaves of crops such as pep­per, cap­sicum, to­ma­toes, black night shade, among oth­ers, the spider mites cause yel­low­ing of the leaves, there­fore, re­du­cing pho­to­syn­thesis rate.

    “Heavy in­fest­a­tion will dis­col­our the leaves be­sides caus­ing curl­ing. Leaf curl­ing re­duces the sur­face area for pho­to­syn­thesis. Yel­low­ing of leaves also sig­nals a drop in the chloro­phyll, which is re­spons­ible for food man­u­fac­tur­ing in crops,” the ex­pert said.

    READ ALSO: ICIPE: Man­agu 'kills' crop mites

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    READ ALSO: Weaver ants clear crops of pests in minutes

    Al­though the spider mites are tiny to see, form­a­tion of webs among the leaves and crops should sig­nal a farmer that the pests are quickly mul­tiply­ing.

    They mites hang on the webs, which are blown by air cur­rents, there­fore, swinging them to the next leaf or plant, Guda said, adding that at this point loses of up to 90 per cent can be re­gistered.

    Un­like chem­ic­als, which kill the pests on the spot on shortly after ap­plic­a­tion, bio­lo­gical solu­tions are slow but more ef­fect­ive in the long run.  For that reason, Guda said, a farmer should not wait for heavy in­fest­a­tion to apply the rem­edy.

    With this and other in­teg­rated pest man­age­ment ap­proaches, chem­ical residues are lim­ited.

    Real IPM is an in­ter­na­tional or­gan­isa­tion cov­er­ing more than 25 coun­tries glob­ally. Kenyan of­fices and demon­stra­tion farm is in the out­skirts of Thika, Kimbu County.

    It can be con­tac­ted on +254725806086.

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    GoatBrowse2

    Farmers growing tagasaste, tree lucerne, can feed livestock for close to 30 years with this hardy, leafy and protein rich fodder shrub.

    Besides being a nitrogen fixing tree, tagasaste has sweet scented flowers for bees.

    It is a highly palatable fodder for goats, cows, sheep and other livestock including poultry. Its digestibility is between 77 per cent and 8 per cent.

    Like Lucerne shrub, tagasaste is a better milk yield booster than most Napier grass varieties given that it has a crude protein content of between 20 per cent and 30 per cent.

    Apart from the recently released giant variety from Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organisation-which has 26 per cent proteins- other common types have proteins ranging from 7 per cent to 8.5 per cent.

    The vitamin A in the tagasaste fodder helps in enhancing the yellow colour in the yolks of poultry.

    This is a hardy fodder tree that can survive in semi arid areas, according to the Fodder Shrubs for Farmers in East Africa manual. The authors of the manual says the tree gives fodder for up to 30 years is well taken care of.

    “Because of its deep roots of up to 30feet or more, tagasaste can tolerate long dry periods and can survive in areas with as little as 200mm annual rainfall, though it requires at least 600mm for good leaf production,” Charles Wambugu et.al say in the manual.

    Arid areas receive rail of 250mm and below annually. The fodder therefore, will still survive in such areas.

    READ ALSO:Shrub feeds can increase livestock nutrition by 60 per cent

    READ ALSO:Fodder shrubs a cheaper alternative to commercial feeds

    READ ALSO:Mulberry leaves offer livestock double Napier grass proteins

    It is also tolerant frost of lows of up to -9 degrees Celsius.

    Within the first two years, it should be pruned back to the ground to encourage sprouting of more shoots.

    Regeneration can yield up to five tonnes per hectare in six months.

    The fodder, however, has low sodium and marginal levels of phosphorus. Therefore, the animals require supplementation of minerals. 

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    Re­search has shown that small­holder farm­ers can in­crease milk yields for their an­im­als by feed­ing them on a mix­ture of Napier grass and Des­modium.

    Napier grass is a spe­cies of per­en­nial trop­ical grass nat­ive to the African grass­lands. A ma­jor­ity of small scale farm­ers use the crop to feed their an­im­als in the dairy pro­duc­tion areas of Kenya. It is a high yield­ing fod­der crop with good palat­ab­il­ity and is highly nu­tri­tious es­pe­cially when young with dark green leaves and less than one meter tall.

    READ ALSO: Bra­chiaria termed bet­ter than Napier in push-pull tech­no­logy

    Des­modium is a large per­en­nial trop­ical for­age legume. It does bet­ter at alti­tudes between 500 and 2500 m in the trop­ics. It grows well on slopes. It can be grown in areas where an­nual rain­fall is above 900 mm and up to 3000 mm. Dur­ing the grow­ing sea­son, it is more sus­cept­ible to drought and has bet­ter tol­er­ance of flood­ing and wa­ter­log­ging.

    Be­fore plant­ing, plough and har­row the field well. Dig plant­ing holes at a space of 3 by 2 feet (90*60 cm). In each hole apply a hand­ful of farm­yard ma­nure and half a soda bottle top of DAP.

    READ ALSO: A bet­ter way to grow Napier Grass for more milk (Tum­buk­iza method)

    While plant­ing, place a 3 node piece of Napier cane en­sur­ing two nodes are covered into the ground or place root splits into the plant­ing hole and cover with soil. Make fur­rows along the Napier grass lines or in between rows to drill des­modium seeds or plant fresh des­modium stem cut­tings. Make sure that you keep the field weed free.

    Har­vest the Napier grass and Des­modium when they are at 2-3 feet (60-90 cm) high. Leave a stem length of 4 inches (10 cm) from the ground at har­vest­ing. When feed­ing it to the an­im­als, chop them to re­duce wastage. Re-growth can be har­ves­ted when 2-3 feet (60-90 cm) high which means a period of 6-8 weeks between the cuts.

    READ ALSO: High pro­tein double yield­ing napier grass re­leased

    Com­bined Napier grass and Des­modium means more fod­der of bet­ter qual­ity and more milk for farm­ers. Napier grass uses ni­tro­gen sup­plied by Des­modium and there­fore saves farm­ers on costs on top dress­ing.

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