KALRO will launch bird-repellant white sorghum in its shops within six months saving farmers 80 per cent in crop losses.
Birds cause up to 80 per cent yield losses in white sorghum. If they have the option, they will only feed on white-coloured sorghums such as Gadam which are the most commercially viable and are grown by farmers contracted to Kenya’s biggest sorghum buyer, East Africa Breweries Limited (EABL), over the bitter brown or red sorghums.
Birds are ever-present on sorghum farms attacking the crop from planting to harvesting but prefer to feed on seeds 20 days after the grain turns green at the soft dough stage.
The white sorghum varieties, Smart Sorghum and Jasiri, developed by the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organisation (KALRO) are currently under multiplication at the research institution’s Katumani station. They repel birds by producing tannin during the milk, dough, and maturity stages making the seeds bitter and unappealing for birds.
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Once the crop is in late harvest and dry, the gene responsible for this bitter taste fades away.
Jasiri also had big grains–a request made by EABL– which makes their heads weak and loopy making it difficult for birds to perch and eat the grains.
“Sorghum grows in arid marginal areas and with little stress for farmers. The crop barely requires any fertiliser to mature. We canvassed sorghum growers across the country and the recurring issue that impacted their yields and hindered many of them from growing the climate-resistant crop was attack by birds,” explained Simon Kuria, the research station head at Kalro Kiboko.
Smart sorghum is drought tolerant and will be able to mature in just three months fetching farmers 15 bags an acre. It is also an ideal source of animal feed because even after the sorghum seeds are mature and ready for harvest the stems remain green retaining most of the nutrients required by livestock.
“After the positive results we have seen from the trial plots with these new varieties we are setting aside 1,000 acres in every ward to grow them for seed multiplication,” said Joel Nzomo the Machakos County Executive Committee Member.
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The seeds will be available for purchase to farmers before the end of the year through KALRO Mkulima shops across the country and other authorised seed distributors.
Sorghum is Kenya’s third most farmed cereal crop but at just 135,000 metric tonnes it’s production is thirty times smaller than maize. The crop is classed an by the FAO as an Opportunity Crop– a nutrient-rich traditional crop that has has the potential to improve food production and nutrition in the face of climate change.
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