Lessons on fruit farming from lecturer’s orchard

Tuya Pei village in Kapseret, Uasin Gishu County, is four kilometres off the Rivatex-Kipkenyo-Ndalat road, with the area being popular for its quarry activities.

Away from the quarrying, fruit farming is one of the other lucrative ventures in Tuya Pei, with Dr Onesmus Ngetich having realised this to establish a thriving orchard where he grows apples, avocados, kiwi, fig tree, grapes, citrus, guava, pawpaw, lemon, tree tomato, mango and strawberries seedling. Alongside the seedlings, he grows some of the fruits, in particular grapes and apples.

He calls his farm Eldoret Orchards Investment Ltd, says the farmer, who holds a PhD in horticulture from the University of Wyoming in the US.

“I started the farm to fill a gap I had seen in fruit production and seedlings as I was studying in the US,” he offers.

His interest came as he interacted with several farmers in the country, some who owned up to 40 acres of nursery, notes the farmer, who also holds a Bachelor of Horticulture from Egerton University.

Soon after completing undergraduate studies in 2010, he got a job at University of Rwanda as a lecturer where he worked for two years. In 2013, he joined University of Embu as a lecturer and the following year he left for the US to pursue the PhD.

“I went into agribusiness formally in 2017, after securing a bank loan of Sh2.1 million and bought about two acres. I took another loan of Sh650,000 and purchased farm inputs including a water pump and seedlings.”

But as he expected to reap from his venture, an eager Dr Ngetich harvested a loss of Sh3 million after one of his workers failed to water his 16,000 avocado seedlings. But he had learnt the lesson.

His farm now has dozens of different fruit varieties and their seedlings. For instance, he has eight varieties of apple seedlings that go for Sh1,000 each, enabling one to choose them depending on where they want to grow.

INNOVATIVE WATER STORAGE

“Once you have grafted a seedling, you need to continuously water them but if this does not happen, you lose the entire crops as it happened,” says the farmer, who has set up innovative water storage tanks made of polythene material and wood. He taps the water from rain and from the nearby River Lemok.

Before he plants the seedlings, he ensures the soil are free of pathogens of diseases like bacterial wilt, nematodes and Amillaria root rot.

“We analyse the soil for pH and amend appropriately with highly reactive agricultural lime. For soils with low organic matter, we add manure and we also add nutrients like TSP during potting and nitrogen later during plant growth. If a plant dies, we discard the soils to avoid diseases.”

Apples, avocados and grapes are some of his favourite plants, with the farmer growing both seedlings and the fruit trees on the farm and another five acres leased in Nandi.

“We classify apples based on maturity period after flowering and pollination. For instance, Anna and Golden Dorset are early maturing and they have a synchrony during flowering hence it is good if they are inter-planted in an orchard to ensure improved pollination. Royal Gala, Granny Smith, Top red and Winter banana have late maturity period. This ensures that a farmer gets a wider selling window. These late maturing varieties have synchrony during flowering,” says Dr Ngetich.

Immediately after flowering, one has to ensure proper irrigation is done to avoid flower abortion.

Spraying of insecticide at this time is prohibited because agents of pollination like bees will die. In case you have high relative humidity during flowering, one need to spray against botrytis cinerea (fungal infection), otherwise flowers will abort.

Apples tend to produce excess apical shoots (competitors with fruit setting process), which should be removed to increase fruit quality.

READILY AVAILABLE PESTICIDES

“After fruit setting, nitrogen, calcium, potassium, boron and zinc fertilisers should be applied. Foliar fertilisers should also be applied. Clean weeding is invaluable and routine preventive fungal sprays are important,” he explains.

He has planted five varieties of grapes on his farm - marroo, flame, royal autumn, Cadillac and table seedless, with the trees producing up to 250 kilogramme of fruits in a season. He sells a kilo to traders in Eldoret and Nairobi at Sh500 each while grape seedlings go for Sh350.

According Dr Ngetich, investment in horticulture is one of the best must retirement plans.

“You don’t have to wait until you are 60 to start making retirement plans, you need to start planning now. The market for the crops is insatiable, both as fruits and seedlings,” says the farmer, who has employed four workers permanently and hires up to 10 others on need basis.

Pests like mite and aphids and diseases like powdery mildew and downy mildew are some of the challenges he grapples with, but he notes there are readily available pesticides to eliminate them. Besides teaching at University of Embu, Dr Ngetich also offers free extension services to other farmers.

Dr Josiah Chiveu, a horticultural expert at University of Eldoret, says that whereas conducive climatic and environmental conditions are critical for fruit production, regular application of calcium is important. In the case of apples, up to eight foliar sprays per growing season is recommended. He adds that foliar boron and zinc also help improve grape quality by increasing sugar content and reducing acidity.

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Growing grapes

1. The level of sugar accumulation depends partly on the number of grapes per plant. Too many on any vine will dilute berry sugar content, which also depends on whether growth and maturity have been slowed or allowed to proceed unchecked.
2. The higher the availability of nitrogen, the higher the sugar content of the grape. Up to certain levels, nitrogen use increases grape sweetness. Therefore, soil analysis is important for specific farms to determine nitrogen levels.