Pests

A poultry farm has rid itself of mites, which had killed 569 of its laying chickens, chicks, and ducks, by using an organic pesticide mixture of garlic, thyme, and peppermint. Edward Mwahvuta, who owns Inua Jamii Farm in Igwamiti, Laikipia County, suffered an almost total wipeout of his birds in 2023 after a futile three-week […]

By Francis Ndungu A small-scale avocado export farm is using lightbulb-lit tins of used diesel oil to get rid of the false codling moth, which had been savaging export volumes. The farm manager of Ibis Farm in Timau, Martin Wango, started using this cheap technology in 2023 after they lost 2,100 pieces of hass avocado

Uganda coffee farmers have turned to alcohol traps to clear 70 per cent of coffee twig borers which have been losing them $40 million every year. The black coffee twig borer (BCTB) is a big threat to African farming. Farmers have found it difficult to kill the pest because it digs deep inside coffee twigs

Moringa leaf spray is offering a rescue to farmers from wheat leaf rust, found in 70 per cent of Kenyan farms, following the banning of the fungicide most used in controlling the pest. According to researchers, the spray prevents the growth of the wheat leaf rust fungus by over 90 per cent. Affecting seven out

By Francis Ndungu An avocado farm has increased its fruits by 150 per cent and avoided its exports being rejected by abandoning chemicals for a pest-stinging organic mix of hot pepper and Mexican marigold weed. Located in Laikipia, Marmanet Farm has kept off thrips, mites, and caterpillars that were sinking the farm increasing its hass

Onion net bags and watchdog eagles are assuring smallholder sunflower farmers of 100 per cent harvests who previously shared half their seeds with birds. After having almost half of his sunflowers snacked on by birds in 2023 Wycliffe Namano protected his sunflowers by clothing their heads in grocery nets and flying a 100-shilling toy eagle

Ugandan farmers are turning bamboo smoke into an organic fertiliser and pesticide that boosts vegetable yields and replaces expensive pesticides. Bamboo liquid smoke diluted in water has been shown to be the most superior wood vinegar capable of increasing vegetable growth and production by 20.2 per cent while cutting pesticide use by half. The vinegar

Lacewing insects are replacing pesticides by eliminating up to 98 per cent of aphids in potato, tomato, capsicum, and eggplant farms. The tiny lacewing larvae which is brown or grey is commonly referred to as the ‘aphid lion’ because of its big appetite for aphids. One eats 100 to 600 of them in the first

A farmer in Siaya has fought striga weeds that had made her farm unusable and won by uprooting and burying the weeds, followed by crop rotation increasing her harvest from five bags to 24 bags. More than 20 million hectares of sub-Saharan Africa’s farmland are affected each year by striga. According to international maize researchers

Tephrosia, a herb more commonly referred to as ‘fish bean’, delivers a double blessing of repelling moles that clear out sweet potato farmers in Western Kenya and increasing crop yields in low fertility soils by almost the same amount as when using chemical fertilisers. Mole rats are mainly found in East Africa and Central Africa