Farmers’ agony as disease ruins maize crop

A mysterious disease continues to cause anguish among farmers in Narok South while scientists admit knowing little about it.

What you need to know:

  • Leaves of affected plants turn yellow before the whole plant rots away within weeks

Mr Joseph Koech of Ilmotiook village in Narok South wonders what to do as he stares at his maize crop on his farm. Half of it has wilted instead of flowering. To make matters worse, the disease that has affected the maize seems to be spreading by the day.

“Every morning I wake up I notice that the problem is spreading. At first, it affected a small part of the farm, now 50 per cent of the crop has wilted and the disease seems to be spreading,” said Mr Koech.

He first heard of the disease affecting farmers in Bomet late last year and then it struck those in Narok South early last month.

“We don’t know which farm was first infected here. Every farmer’s maize crop has now been affected by the disease. The leaves of the plants turn yellow and then the whole plant rots away within weeks. It  continues to spread by the day,” said Mr Koech.

He said at first agricultural officers in the region told them that it was the maize streak virus but now the plants seem to have been affected by a mysterious disease. No one knows exactly what it is, he added.

 Mr Gedion Ng’etich, who lives a few villages away in Segemian, finished planting maize on his farm for the second time as soon as the long rains set in four days ago.

Earlier, his farm was the worst hit by the maize disease that still remains enigmatic.

“Like many other years before, I planted maize on my three-acre farm, alongside other farmers in the area, and everything looked normal until they were two months old and the disease crept in. Now here I am, planting again,” said Mr Ng’etich.

The mysterious disease continues to cause anguish among farmers while scientists admit knowing little about it. The disease is feared to have spread to Borabu in Nyamira County.

According to Dr James Gethi, the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute’s national maize programme coordinator, the disease still remains mysterious despite efforts having been made to find out its nature. He said they are yet to establish the cause of the disease.

“We are thoroughly investigating the disease but we will not say when we will know more about it,” he said.

Dr Johnson Irungu — director of agriculture, Crop Management Directorate, in the Ministry of Agriculture — said the problem with the maize in Bomet was serious.

“There is a team of researchers investigating the matter — including the University of Nairobi, Egerton University and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre — and they are expected to identify the problem,” said Dr Irungu. He said the disease could be fungal or viral.

“Samples of the crops were taken a month ago to the United Kingdom by the Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International for tests and the results are expected any time,” he said.

A team of Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service (Kephis) researchers collected samples from the field in February but they are yet to release results from their analysis.

Kephis managing director James Onsando in a previous interview said they expected to give the results of the samples by mid-march.
“We should be able to get back to the farmers within three to four weeks,” Dr Onsando told the Nation in February.

Dr Irungu said if the disease is fungal it would be a easy to handle. If it turns out to be viral, it would pose a significant risk as it takes between five and six years to do research and come up with a seed resistant to the disease.

The scientists have ruled out use of bad seed as the cause because the disease has affected all farmers irrespective of the source of the inputs.

In Bomet, the disease is said to have wiped out most of the crop during the short rains.