Embu reaps big from new mango varieties

By Joseph Muchiri

Embu, Kenya; Proceeds: Farmers planting new varieties and pruning them well get double the yields

Agricultural experts in Embu County have intensified better management of mango trees.

They have upped group marketing of mangoes to make the farming of the fruit lucrative.

The agriculturalists under the Kenya Agriculture Productivity and Agribusiness Project (Kapap) aims to multiply the product by having more farmers engage in best agricultural practices.

According to a Kapap survey, farmers have already raked in over Sh30 million since January when the current mango season begun. It argues that they can earn with better production methods.

This was a remarkable increase from the average of Sh5 million per season that the farmers previously earned before.

The have now banked on better farming management and coordination in groups to sell their produce in a regulated programme

Anthony Gateri, the Embu Kapap service unit director, said they are have embarked on a programme where more than 1,400 farmers under the Association will prune their mango bushes for better yields.

Pruning allows for more light to penetrate to the mango fruit at its various stages for better growth. Incidentally, many farmers do not practise it.

Gateri says the mangoes that grow under shade are less sweater and unappealing to the eye than those exposed to optimum light and heat.

On the other hand, strong sunlight hardens and destroys the fruit. This has attracted agriculturalists out to train farmers on how to prune better for optimum amount of sun to reach the fruit.

 “Apart from making the fruit sweeter and more appealing to the eye, which is then able to get better market and earn higher prices, pruning also averts some mango diseases that usually occasion heavy losses to farmers,” says Gateri.

During pruning, farmers are urged to remove fruits stalks of the previous season since they have outlived their usefulness.

If left, they could act as conduits for diseases such as rust. Experts are also emphasising on the need to adhere to a common spraying programme of mango trees using all the required chemicals.

weevils and fruit  flies

  This involves spraying with fungicides from July onward when the trees start flowering and spraying again in September to kill mango weevils and the dreaded fruit flies.

The International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology in conjunction with Techno-Serve,  have also embarked on providing of fruit fly traps to the farmers to help contain the nagging and destructive fly.

The traps have a wick impregnated with pheromenone that attracts male fruit fly, which is falsely thinks it is going to mate only for it to be killed by chemicals in the wick.  “While the traps have been effective in riding mango producing areas of Karurumo of the fruit flies, we are also emphasising that the methods kills only one type of insect while there are many others,” explains Gateri.

Farmers are also advised to grow major mango varieties that do well in Embu such as Kent, Tommy, Vandeik and Haden.

Apple and Boribo varieties even though they do particularly well at the Coast, fare badly in Embu where they are vulnerable to rust attacks.  “We are urging farmers to plant the right varieties of mangoes that will give them maximum benefit from the least effort,” observes Gateri.

“They should always go for those endorsed by the Ministry Of Agriculture for their particular climatic zone. Such varieties can be found at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute Embu or Thika.”

He says more farmers are now sensitised on the importance of growing the best mango varieties. Consequently, high yielding varieties are slowly replacing the old varieties. In applying of fertilisers, farmers are advised to put it away from the mango stem as its root system is well spread. Gateri says a mango trees can be inter-cropped with other crops that do not grow tall to the extent of interfering with the mango such as beans.

 Inter-cropping mango trees with maize is discouraged because when maize grows tall, it affects the mango bush especially when during flowering. 

Kapap is helping the area farmers in identifying quality and right mango varieties, maintenance of their mango farms and in marketing of their produce.

Through the value chain approach where they involve, consultants, farmers and marketers in production of mangoes, experts believe the livelihood of small-scale farmers will improve.

Marketing through the engagements of experts has enabled groups of farmers explore new market outlets in Nyandarua, Nairobi. They have extended the same to Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.