By Lyzzie Owade

Nderitu Danson has lifted his maize yield to 44 sacks an acre in Laikipia, higher than the world average, by adopting male and female maize plants as a hybrid seed grower for Bayer East Africa.

Typically Kenyan farms yield 11 to 22 sacks per acre, compared with 50 to 51 sacks per acre from top performers in the US and South America, but the new yields now position Nderito as a high-yield farmer in Kenya and globally.

Nderitu started growing maize three years ago, working for the Mama Mboga farm in Rimuruti, Laikipia, and producing around 30 sacks an acre, but the total was decreasing.

When an agronomist visited his farm, he explained how he could plant both male and female maize separately to increase his yield.

Bayer East Africa gives the yield on its seeds during distribution, said Nderitu, but people are not familiar with the package, and they also don’t realise the blue bag is male seeds and pink is for females.

When he signed up as a seed grower, a key step was a visit by the agronomist to assess his farm. Farmers must have at least five acres, said Nderitu, and the agronomist assesses the amount and availability of water. If the farm fits, Bayer then issues a contract to the farmer to buy the maize as seeds and provides seeds for planting for free.

‘’Like the normal maize, this hybrid Dekalb takes like three months depending on the condition,” said Nderitu

‘’During planting, we have four buckets where one contains male and the other three are female. In a row of four there are three lines of female and the fourth row is always male . The male are grown less than females since their purpose is only for pollination. At the end of each row we create another border for  male plant,” he said.

Once the female maize starts to tassel, it is removed by a process called maize detasseling, to avoid self pollination.  After this, the male is allowed to produce the pollen. When the process is complete  the male maize is lifted and used for silage. 

He gets about Sh25,000 per acre for the silage. “I sell it at a throwaway price for anyone wants it as we don’t need it.”

Nderitu then gets up to 44 sacks per acre of maize, which Bayer collects, prices on a form and then pays for.