Why I’ll not trade tree tomato for other crop

The weather is chilly and there is a drizzle as the Seeds of Gold reporter and photographer go to Kagumo village in Tetu sub-county in search of George Wang’ombe.

We meet Wang’ombe in his tree tomato farm. He is in black gumboots as he walks around the three-acre farm.

On this day, some of the workers were planting new seedlings, others were harvesting the fruits and applying manure.
Wang’ombe informs us that he had that morning harvested 10 bags of tree tomato each weighing 50kg. He sells a kilo at between Sh100 and Sh150.
“The market is huge because not many people grow the crop here. In Nyeri, the main crops are tomatoes, vegetables, coffee and other fruit trees.”

Wang’ombe shifted to tree tomatoes (tamarillo) in 2009 after incurring losses from coffee due to low prices.

He invested Sh20,000 capital in the new crop. The farmer has planted four varieties — red giant, red oratia, ruthamer and rab red giant.

Wang’ombe first plants the seeds in a nursery. Once they germinate after about two weeks, he transfers the seedlings in polythene bags where they stay for up to three weeks and are then taken to the farm.

They are planted using fertiliser mixed with soil. The crop must be watered thoroughly.

His first batch of 50 tree tomatoes matured after two years and earned him Sh25,000.

SHORTEN MATURITY PERIOD

This encouraged him to grow more fruits. But he was keen to shorten the period the crop was taking to mature.

Besides, the farmer realised he was spending a lot of money on fertiliser and pesticides.

“The plants also needed a lot of water to enable them to bear large fruits and survive especially during dry seasons.”

Using knowledge on grafting he had learned at Wambugu Agricultural Training Centre in Nyeri, the farmer took an indigenous tree tomato from a friend which he grafted to the ones he was planting.

“But before I did that, I sought help from the Horticultural Crops Development Authority where the fruit was tested and given the green light to be grafted to my variety,” says Wang’ombe who holds two certificates from crop development authority and another from the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service.

His grafted varieties are called red giant oratia grafted, red giant ruthamer grafted and rab red giant grafted.

MORE RESISTANT

Normally, a tree tomato takes two years to bear fruits, but the grafted one matures in nine months.

“The grafted variety is more resistant to diseases, matures faster and does well in high altitude as well as drier areas.”

He supplies the fruits in markets and supermarkets in Nyeri and Nairobi.

Unlike other plants, tree tomatoes can bear fruits all-year round with a single tree producing between 55 to 85kg in six months. The fruits are picked after every two weeks and can survive for between four to 10 years.

Besides selling fruits, Wang’ombe has, at any given time, 10,000 tree tomato seedlings, both grafted and non-grafted, which he sells at Sh100.

He sells over 500 seedlings a month. He decided to sell them at an average price because he says the demand was nearly equal.

John Wambugu, an agronomist at the Wambugu Agricultural Training Centre, says tree tomatoes thrive in fertile, light soil that is rich in organic matter.

“It requires a lot of water. The plant is known to have shallow root system, which can be bettered through grafting.”

Unlike tomatoes which are mostly used as vegetable, tree tomato is eaten as a fruit and is a rich source of Vitamin B Complex such as thiamin and riboflavin.

The fruit also contains copper, manganese, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc and iron.