Mlafu 19th July, 2010

2010 CVP
Companion Village Project
Visit Report
6th Visit Year One
19th July, 2010


Village Mlafu
Pastor Daison Mpesa
Companion Our Saviour’s, Still water
Attendees 15
Weather for the past month Rainy
Reporter Gabriel, Ibrahim, Rev. Mang’ulisa
Purposes of the visit
• To collect the yield measurement
• To deliver grain storage chemical “Shumba”
• End of season discussion and planning for the next farming season
Topics
1. Review of the handouts
• 6th Visit instruction handout
• Yield recording sheet
2. Harvesting
Both corn and beans have been harvested. Unfortunately they forget to count number of plants in three 10m rows as instructed.

Amounts in bags/plot
( ½ Acre) Yield in 10m in 3 lines (For further analysis) Remarks
Corn 5bags 3 ½ tins Litres 5.8 7 7 Yield higher than the local varieties
No. of plants
Beans 1bag 1 tins Litres 1 1.3 1 Yield higher than the local varieties
No. of plants

3. Storage
We instructed them on how to store grain for home usage and for selling at the time of high price. We instructed how to mix grain storage pesticides “shumba” and the appropriate volume of grain per bottle recommended. We left the pesticides to them to mix with their harvested grains.

4. Discussion about the farming seasons
• Corn
The corn seed (H628) is the high yield variety however is not tolerant to continuous rainfall after maturity. Some ears were rotten. We told them that we will introduce another improved variety which tolerates rainfall after maturity.
• Beans
They said that the bean variety we introduced is very good. It yields higher than the local variety.
Comments/questions
 They said when they sprayed pesticides Thionex some of the leaf and flower eating bugs did not die
We discussed with them as when they started to spray the pesticides. We found out the spraying was delayed. We told them the pesticides do work properly when are sprayed at the right time. The early stage of the pest infestation is the right time to spray the pesticides.

Conclusion
We told them that they should start thinking about the coming farming season. We instructed them to start weeding and prepare the plots for another crop. They gave thanks to the institute and companion congregation for the demonstration plots project.