By Antynet Ford

Keith Muriuki, a grape grower in Embu, has found he can get three harvests a year of the fruit, turning his crop into a high earner, and seeing him chase for new grape-growing land as fast as he can get it.

Globally, grapes produce just one crop a year.

“I started farming grapes in 2023 and it has been a great journey because its management is easy as you do not need to be there all the time keeping an eye on it,” he said

“I got two seedlings from my friend’s farm and that is what I started the grapes farming. I started with the two because I wanted to test if they would grow well in Embu. When I saw that they were growing nicely, that is when I added more trees and got to twenty-three. I bought twenty-two and was added one for buying many. I bought the seedlings from a farm here in Embu, which propagates them,” he said.

“Unlike my neighbours, who farm the other staple foods, I ventured into grapes farming after I visited my friend and saw grapes in his farm thriving very well. That is the point when I learnt that grapes could be farmed in my area. I have not seen any challenge in terms of farming or market for the fruits. When they are ready, there is always a ready market.  The street vendors are my biggest buyers. They have promoted me a lot. I have done a supermarket supply just once. What I was previously supplying to the retail chains a lot were passion fruits though I stopped farming them for a bit and concentrate on grapes as it is not farmed by many people,” said Keith.

But his breakthrough was discovering how to create three harvests a year from the low-care, resilient crop.

“When you plant the crop, at first you may think that it does not fruit even though the plant is healthy. Until you do pruning, that is when it flowers and then produces fruits.” 

“The yield is always good when the pruning is properly done. You will always hear many farmers complain that their plant is not producing fruits and that it is dormant, but you need to prune properly at the mother stem. You do not cut off the whole stem, it is the branches that shoot off the mother stem that are pruned.” 

“After you prune, you will see it flowering and later producing fruits. When you harvest and fail to prune after the harvest, it shall again not fruit. So the pruning is what makes the plants break the dormancy,” he said.

“When I started with the two trees, it was just for my family consumption, but I realised there was a big opportunity in producing more fruits as there was a ready market especially from the street vendors in various cities and towns across the country. There were people coming to ask if I was planting more for commercial purposes, thus the reason to add more trees.”

“I have been farming the purple grapes, but currently I have two trees for the green variety which is mostly imported. The demand for the green one is high, thus the new venture.”

“I have not received training or technical support from anyone. It is just me learning on the job and producing great fruits. The two that I started with were my learning point,”  said Keith.

“There is no technology or unique thing that is there with grapes. They are just planted like passion fruits on wires to get support. From twenty-three, I have added to almost thirty. If I get a bigger farm somewhere, I will add the plants to one hundred. The space is what is limiting me, but I could do even one thousand or two thousound trees of grapes if I had a larger farm,” he said.

The spacing between each vine is three meters and because they are planted in rows, from one row to the other, the space is one meter. This gives farmers around 1,350 vines per acre, each of which produces around 3kg of grapes per vine per harvest, making around 9 tonnes per acre, compared with an average of 3 tonnes an acre in big grape-growing countries like France

“As I said earlier on, as you prune grapes, it is when it produces the fruits. But in a year you can do a minimum harvest of three times. It does not have seasons. It all depends with your pruning.”

“I still have to hold on plans about value addition because 30 trees are not enough. That needs around 1,000 or more plants so that I can produce resins and wine, among other things. Because I have seedlings, when I get a larger farming space that’s it,” he said.

“Grapes need patience as for it to start producing fruits, it takes twelve months minimum. Then, the fruits are sweet, so when you start, do not eat them at least sell and make an income from the farming. Start by looking for customers slowly and the market will grow as time moves.”