c-ray
05-03-2007, 09:28 PM
I don't advocate using toxic pesticides but this is interesting
from http://allafrica.com/stories/200704250465.html
The Nation (Nairobi)
NEWS
April 25, 2007
Posted to the web April 25, 2007
By Muchemi Wachira
Nairobi
He is an ordinary, peasant farmer who has leased land for horticulture to earn a living in Matanya area of Laikipia District.
But to local farmers, Robert Ngari, 45, is a dependable researcher. He is more dear to them than the Government's agriculture officers are.
Thanks to him, many landowners are returning to their land, which they abandoned over the past three years following a massive invasion by millipedes.
Ngari has a local invention to control the arthropods. Now farmers can once again venture into horticulture, which is fairly lucrative.
A millipede, he discovered, does not die easily when sprayed with poison, unlike other pests and insects that attack growing plants.
Swallow poison
"You must ensure that the millipede swallows the poison for it to die. Otherwise, spraying it with chemicals is useless. I even tried to sink millipedes in a container of water mixed with diazinon (a poisonous solution used to control pests), but they did not die," he says.
At first he tried several types of edibles to see whether the insect would consume them.
"The food that millipedes seemed to like most is maize germ, which we usually give our livestock and chicken," the farmer says. After adding diazinon to it, the millipedes devoured the mixture and started dying.
Ngari's new invention is good news to horticulturists, hence their return to the area. Matanya is semi-arid. Horticulture farmers depend on the perennial Burguret River for irrigation.
Since millipedes are restricted to moist places, where they feed on organic matter, it is mainly within the valley where this river courses through that they thrive.
The area is usually wet. Mulching to protect shooting plants from the scorching sun provides shelter to millipedes.
Last three years
"We started seeing them (millipedes) about three years ago. Soon they were countless. They quickly destroy tomatoes and French beans just as they start to shoot," says local farmer Julius Wahome.
The farmer had been selling tomatoes in Mombasa over the past 10 years. He temporary stopped doing so after the millipede invasion, but has now resumed the business.
Mr Wahome, who has a three-acre piece of land, recalls: "The millipedes could not be managed. They came in large numbers. We first noticed them during the rainy season of 2004. Each time it drizzled, they seemingly sprouted from the ground. They invaded growing crops and our homes."
Besides ripening tomatoes and French beans, the millipedes also destroyed maturing cabbages and shooting cow peas.
No crop was safe from them except maize, the farmers say. They add that even ordinary beans and Irish potatoes, which are grown for subsistence in the area, were not spared.
Leaves of bean stalks and Irish potatoes were "cleaned out by the creatures," thereby damaging the whole crop. The millipedes also damaged mature potatoes by drilling holes into them and partially eating them.
For three years when the pests reigned supreme, farmers were in pathetic state.
The maize crop, the only one spared by the millipedes, was not reliable, owing to insufficient rains. Beans and Irish potatoes used to do better in the area as they didn't take long to mature, unlike maize.
Currently, for instance, the maize crop that was planted in October has failed, owing to a prolonged dry spell from January to this month. But beans and Irish potatoes in millipede-free farms have flourished.
"We can't plant beans or Irish potatoes in many areas, yet the two crops used to do fairly well here," says Simon Mureithi.
Mr Mureithi, who says he was born in the area in 1948, adds that the farms had become useless to them despite their previous good productivity.
He started farming in the area 27 years ago, soon after he got married. He says they have never seen such an invasion of millipedes.
"It is a serious crisis. Even sweet potatoes and cassava are suffering." Following the millipede attack, peasant farmers like Mureithi have had to hire land elsewhere to grow beans and Irish potatoes, which are their staple food.
"We are now planting maize and nappier grass in Matanya for our animals."
A few years ago, the main problem farmers in the area encountered was the occasional rogue elephant. The area is sandwiched by Mount Kenya on the eastern side and the Aberdare ranges on the western side. It is an elephant corridor.
But elephants are no longer a nuisance following the erection of an electric fence around the Aberdare National Park.
The millipede invasion was, however, a more gigantic problem. Elephants used to invade the farms only twice a year. But millipedes, which lie beneath the surface of many farms, strike every time it rains, or when irrigation is done.
Laikipia district crops officer Stanley Mutuota says millipedes are a headache, mainly due to their large numbers. But he says the challenge they pose is not as big as the farmers claim it is.
"These organisms (millipedes) are essential to soil productivity. They improve aeration by turning the soil around, besides helping in soil structure formation," he says.
Crop rotation
"With proper crop rotation, farmers will not have any problem with millipedes," he says.
"Those who heed our advice and practise crop rotation and husbandry will not complain of millipede infestation," he says.
But farmers in the area disagree. They say that although they own about three acres each, which is very little, they have tried crop rotation and other practices, to no avail.
Before discovering the local remedy to the millipedes, Ngari had tried crop rotation, without much success.
The father of three says he left his one-acre coffee farm in his rural home in Mathira Division five years ago. When the prices of coffee started to fall on the world market, he decided to try horticulture in Laikipia District. The land there is more expansive.
"I made a small fortune in the first few years from tomatoes, cow peas and French beans," Ngari recalls.
But when millipedes started becoming a nuisance, he followed the advice of agriculture officers to the letter.
Plant water melons
"Crop rotation does not seem to work against millipedes. I was advised to plant water melons on a farm I had hired by agriculture experts," he recounts.
That was in 2004. He says he sourced seedlings of the fruit from Mwea Division of Kirinyaga District. All the 40 seedlings he planted on a pilot basis were destroyed by millipedes, he recalls.
He was devastated. "I could not go back to my rural farm and its abandoned coffee trees. So I had either to move out of Matanya to continue with horticulture farming, or to start another occupation," he says. Necessity is the mother of invention. Ngari came up with a solution to the problem. It is now working wonders on many farms.
The millipedes are still in large numbers, but farmers now have a deadly weapon against them. It is not meant to wipe them out completely, they say, but merely to control them. This allows the young plants to sprout. Farmers resume the control measures when the plants, fruits and vegetables start to mature.
"The Government should come up with a solution to the millipede peril," they say.
from http://allafrica.com/stories/200704250465.html
The Nation (Nairobi)
NEWS
April 25, 2007
Posted to the web April 25, 2007
By Muchemi Wachira
Nairobi
He is an ordinary, peasant farmer who has leased land for horticulture to earn a living in Matanya area of Laikipia District.
But to local farmers, Robert Ngari, 45, is a dependable researcher. He is more dear to them than the Government's agriculture officers are.
Thanks to him, many landowners are returning to their land, which they abandoned over the past three years following a massive invasion by millipedes.
Ngari has a local invention to control the arthropods. Now farmers can once again venture into horticulture, which is fairly lucrative.
A millipede, he discovered, does not die easily when sprayed with poison, unlike other pests and insects that attack growing plants.
Swallow poison
"You must ensure that the millipede swallows the poison for it to die. Otherwise, spraying it with chemicals is useless. I even tried to sink millipedes in a container of water mixed with diazinon (a poisonous solution used to control pests), but they did not die," he says.
At first he tried several types of edibles to see whether the insect would consume them.
"The food that millipedes seemed to like most is maize germ, which we usually give our livestock and chicken," the farmer says. After adding diazinon to it, the millipedes devoured the mixture and started dying.
Ngari's new invention is good news to horticulturists, hence their return to the area. Matanya is semi-arid. Horticulture farmers depend on the perennial Burguret River for irrigation.
Since millipedes are restricted to moist places, where they feed on organic matter, it is mainly within the valley where this river courses through that they thrive.
The area is usually wet. Mulching to protect shooting plants from the scorching sun provides shelter to millipedes.
Last three years
"We started seeing them (millipedes) about three years ago. Soon they were countless. They quickly destroy tomatoes and French beans just as they start to shoot," says local farmer Julius Wahome.
The farmer had been selling tomatoes in Mombasa over the past 10 years. He temporary stopped doing so after the millipede invasion, but has now resumed the business.
Mr Wahome, who has a three-acre piece of land, recalls: "The millipedes could not be managed. They came in large numbers. We first noticed them during the rainy season of 2004. Each time it drizzled, they seemingly sprouted from the ground. They invaded growing crops and our homes."
Besides ripening tomatoes and French beans, the millipedes also destroyed maturing cabbages and shooting cow peas.
No crop was safe from them except maize, the farmers say. They add that even ordinary beans and Irish potatoes, which are grown for subsistence in the area, were not spared.
Leaves of bean stalks and Irish potatoes were "cleaned out by the creatures," thereby damaging the whole crop. The millipedes also damaged mature potatoes by drilling holes into them and partially eating them.
For three years when the pests reigned supreme, farmers were in pathetic state.
The maize crop, the only one spared by the millipedes, was not reliable, owing to insufficient rains. Beans and Irish potatoes used to do better in the area as they didn't take long to mature, unlike maize.
Currently, for instance, the maize crop that was planted in October has failed, owing to a prolonged dry spell from January to this month. But beans and Irish potatoes in millipede-free farms have flourished.
"We can't plant beans or Irish potatoes in many areas, yet the two crops used to do fairly well here," says Simon Mureithi.
Mr Mureithi, who says he was born in the area in 1948, adds that the farms had become useless to them despite their previous good productivity.
He started farming in the area 27 years ago, soon after he got married. He says they have never seen such an invasion of millipedes.
"It is a serious crisis. Even sweet potatoes and cassava are suffering." Following the millipede attack, peasant farmers like Mureithi have had to hire land elsewhere to grow beans and Irish potatoes, which are their staple food.
"We are now planting maize and nappier grass in Matanya for our animals."
A few years ago, the main problem farmers in the area encountered was the occasional rogue elephant. The area is sandwiched by Mount Kenya on the eastern side and the Aberdare ranges on the western side. It is an elephant corridor.
But elephants are no longer a nuisance following the erection of an electric fence around the Aberdare National Park.
The millipede invasion was, however, a more gigantic problem. Elephants used to invade the farms only twice a year. But millipedes, which lie beneath the surface of many farms, strike every time it rains, or when irrigation is done.
Laikipia district crops officer Stanley Mutuota says millipedes are a headache, mainly due to their large numbers. But he says the challenge they pose is not as big as the farmers claim it is.
"These organisms (millipedes) are essential to soil productivity. They improve aeration by turning the soil around, besides helping in soil structure formation," he says.
Crop rotation
"With proper crop rotation, farmers will not have any problem with millipedes," he says.
"Those who heed our advice and practise crop rotation and husbandry will not complain of millipede infestation," he says.
But farmers in the area disagree. They say that although they own about three acres each, which is very little, they have tried crop rotation and other practices, to no avail.
Before discovering the local remedy to the millipedes, Ngari had tried crop rotation, without much success.
The father of three says he left his one-acre coffee farm in his rural home in Mathira Division five years ago. When the prices of coffee started to fall on the world market, he decided to try horticulture in Laikipia District. The land there is more expansive.
"I made a small fortune in the first few years from tomatoes, cow peas and French beans," Ngari recalls.
But when millipedes started becoming a nuisance, he followed the advice of agriculture officers to the letter.
Plant water melons
"Crop rotation does not seem to work against millipedes. I was advised to plant water melons on a farm I had hired by agriculture experts," he recounts.
That was in 2004. He says he sourced seedlings of the fruit from Mwea Division of Kirinyaga District. All the 40 seedlings he planted on a pilot basis were destroyed by millipedes, he recalls.
He was devastated. "I could not go back to my rural farm and its abandoned coffee trees. So I had either to move out of Matanya to continue with horticulture farming, or to start another occupation," he says. Necessity is the mother of invention. Ngari came up with a solution to the problem. It is now working wonders on many farms.
The millipedes are still in large numbers, but farmers now have a deadly weapon against them. It is not meant to wipe them out completely, they say, but merely to control them. This allows the young plants to sprout. Farmers resume the control measures when the plants, fruits and vegetables start to mature.
"The Government should come up with a solution to the millipede peril," they say.