Wami - CVP Visit Report - Oct 25-2012

2012 Companion Village Project 3rd Visit, Year Two October 25, 2012 Village Wami Pastor/Evangelist Pascal Fyataga Companion The Pyrethrum Company of Tanzania Attendees 10 Weather for the past month Dry and cool Reporters Fred, Pongolan, and Venance We went to Wami accompanied by Fred from Minnesota. We talked about Wami corn and beans harvest as we travelled. Fred was interested to know how much they had harvested. I referred to my record and told him they had harvested 2 bags of corn and just one bag of beans. Their harvest was very low, one reason for the low harvest is that the corn plot had poor germination, they replanted late in the season, and another reason could be they did not follow the teachings well because they were doing the CVP In the first year. Fred raised a concern about low bean harvest in most of the CVPs and wanted to know from my understanding. I thought farmers have not determined the right planting dates for beans and the rainfall pattern has been so erratic in a couple of years taking into consideration that beans life cycle is short (about 80 -90 days). Purposes of the visit • To see the pyrethrum nursery • To demonstrate on planting of corn and beans • To deliver corn seeds, bean seeds and fertilizers Topics 1. Review of the handouts • 3rd Visit Instruction • Plant population with 60 cm. rows and Fertilizer applications • Fertilizer needs template 2. Demonstration: o Planting and fertilizer applications We demonstrated on how to plant and how to apply fertilizers. We insisted that they should not place seeds and fertilizers together. There should be at least 5cm apart. The spacing is 60×20cm for corn and 30×10cm for beans. Fertilizers should be applied to both corn and beans. 3. Rainfall data We collected the rainfall data for the past season and insisted that they should continue recording rainfall data in order to establish a data base which is very useful for future farming decisions. 4. Delivery We delivered corn seeds, bean seeds and fertilizers as shown in the table below:- Item Corn Beans Fertilizers for corn Fertilizers for beans Variety TMV Uyole 96 NPK cereal for basal application NPK cereal for side dressing NPK winner for bean planting Amount 8kg 40kg 2 bags 2 bags 2 bags Conclusion We hope that they will do better in the coming farming season because they are given a good corn seed and other inputs at the right time. They had some questions on fertilizers; we took time to answer their questions. One of their interesting questions was “If I did not apply fertilizers at planting can I compensate by doubling the amount at 2nd application time?