Itungi July 19, 2010

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

Village Itungi
Pastor Damian Ngandango and Ass. Pastor Meshack Magova
Companion Como Park
Attendees 37
Weather for the past month Dry
Reporters Ibrahim , Gabriel and Lunodzo

We met member of this congregation having religious seminar in the church. As they finished we started the demonstrations and visited the place where they have stored dried corn and beans
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
Corn and beans have been harvested. Corn has not been shelled and beans not yet threshed. Unfortunately they forgot to take yield measurements in 10m in corn.
Amounts in bags/plot
( ½ Acre) Yield in 10m in 3 lines( For further analysis) Remarks
Corn Litres Yield higher than local variety
Rotting affected some ears
No. of plants
Beans Litres 2 2 2 Yield higher than local variety
No. of plants 35 35 32

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
There is corn rotting problem, especially with the hybrid introduced here. The corn seed (H628) is the high yield variety however is not tolerant to continuous rainfall after maturity. We told them that we are working on getting 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.
We encourage them to form farmers’ cooperative bodies. This will help them to get farming loans, buying inputs and selling their grains for better price.

Comments/questions
 They expressed their concern about minimum tillage. They said some of them who tried minimum tillage have been doing more frequent weeding than before and sometimes once they finish one weed they have to start another one in the same farm
We told them; at first weeds grow quickly in the farms where minimum tillage is practiced for the first time. However we encouraged farmers to start farm preparation early. We tell farmers to do monthly weeding even if there are no crops in the farm to prevent weeds from going to seeds. Farmers who do this practice will have to do less frequent weeding.
 The members express their sincerely gratitude to the Institute and to their companion congregation for the agricultural training to them. They promise to start adapting the techniques to their farms.

Conclusion
We told them to start preparation for the next season. We encourage them to follow all the instructions to get good results in the demonstration plots and better yields in their farms.