Itungi - CVP Report Jan 25-2010

2010 CVP
Companion Village Project
Visit Report
4th Visit Year two
January 25th, 2010


Village Itungi
Pastor Damian Ngandango and Assistant pastor Meshack Magova
Companion Como Park Lutheran Church
Attendees 9
Weather for the past month Rainy
Reporters Ibrahim, Gabriel, Roger and Alfred

Purpose of the visit
• Planting bean and fertilizer application demonstrations
• Demonstration on second fertilizers application in corn
• Deliver fertilizer bags, Bean seeds, bottle spray, and insecticides
Topics
1. Greetings
Roger gave greetings from Como Park Lutheran Church, Saint Paul Area Synod and US Ag Advisory Committee
2. Went through the handouts
o 4th Visit handout
o Quiz handout
o Rain record sheets.
3. Demonstrations
We demonstrated how to measure inter row spacing (30cm). Using a string and a hand hoe we demonstrated how to make a trench for planting the bean seeds. One seed was placed after every 10 cm. It was demonstrated how to place one full bottle cap of fertilizer between 2 seeds i.e. Seed-seed-fertilizer-seed-seed-fertilizer etc.

4. Fertilizer and seed delivery
According to the analysis of the soil of this area, the type of fertilizer recommended was NPK (10-18-24) for bean seed planting. The congregation was given 2 NPK bags and 27 Kg of bean seeds, variety of bean seeds delivered is Uyole 98. We also delivered 2 bags (50 Kg) of CAN for second fertilizer application to corn field.




Comments
 They planted corn on Nov 26th, 2009 and received first rain on Dec 15th, 2009. Also they replanted on Dec 23rd, 2009.
 Four people out of 9 people attended have already practiced the techniques taught, on their own farm. They didn’t burn crop residues-hence helped to control soil erosion, planted corn in rows and followed spacing 60 cm by 20 cm as recommended. This has resulted an easy application of insecticides and good looking crops.
 Plants looks good when planted followed the recommendations taught.

Questions from audience and answers

 They said last year we recommended the spacing for beans 50 cm by 9 cm, is the change due to change of bean seed variety?
The answer is yes, but we also want to have a higher plant population for a better yield.

 If they don’t have enough fertilizer as we recommend what they can do?
We suggested to them to use manure (compost) or to go for larger spacing that will give them maximum plant population per area that will match with the amount of fertilizers applied.

They asked that based on the fertilizer recommendation to apply 2 bags of fertilizer, why should they broadcast the remaining fertilizers?
We told them for demonstration plots the soil analysis recommends the amount required that is why we are telling them to make sure they apply the total amount.

Why shouldn’t they cultivate the field to reduce weeds?
We told them the way we are instructing them chip off weeds in a monthly bases starting from August (Dry season) because it helps to reduce weeds and give them more time and to save money that could be used for cultivating field and use it for buying fertilizer.

Conclusions/Recommendations
We emphasized the importance of following instruction because the success of the program depends upon them following what we instructed. They promised to follow all the instructions.