Growing drought-tolerant Lablab or Njahi fodder is a livestock saver that could prove critical to farmers and herders as Kenya heads into renewed drought.
During Kenya’s severe 2022 drought, 2.5 million livestock valued at Sh50 billion died from a lack of feed and water. To protect their animals from the oncoming drought more than half (51.9%) of farmers in Kenya’s main Njahi growing regions are growing the legume, which is a popular delicacy in Kenya, for its leaves rather than its seeds twice a year as a drought buffer fodder crop. First, they intercropped it with maize to make silage in the shorter October to December rains and grew it as a standalone crop in the January to March dry season when no other crops could be grown on farms.
Lablab grows best when it has access to plenty of sunlight and 500 and 800 mm of rainfall. Being drought tolerant, it can however still grow when the rainfall is as low as 400 mm in soils that hold moisture well.
The Dash and Rongai late flowering lablab varieties which can be gotten from KALRO and ILRI that produce brown seeds and have white flowers are recommended for animal fodder as they have large leaves. They are high-yielding producing 30 tons of fresh forage and six to nine tonnes of dry matter per hectare. It is harvested to make silage during flowering after three months. Direct feeding is not recommended as it can cause bloating when animals feed on it too much. It also has a 16 per cent protein content which is double that of Napier grass and almost similar to that of Lucerne. High protein fodder increases milk output and reduces a farmer’s spend on dairy meal.
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In the USA, cattle farmers use the legume as an ideal intercropping option to improve the quality of their maize and sorghum silage.
Lablab and maize grown at a rate of 82,000 plants/ha and 55,000 plants/ha respectively produced silage with more dry matter, more protein, and fiber that was useful to dairy cattle than growing maize alone to produce silage.
When using it for silage, farmers are advised to dry the crop for 18 to 24 hours to increase its soluble sugars which increases the fermentation process. A silage mixture of maize and labab does not need molasses as the sugars in the legume ferment the silage themselves.
According to CGIAR Trust, it grows in an array of soils that span acidic to alkaline soils with a pH of 5.0–7.5 and deep sand to heavy clay soils with good drainage as they cannot tolerate water logging.
The crop also performs poorly in areas with high rainfall and frost.
To plant lablab, prepare your field normally as you would growing beans and sow the seeds through broadcast three centimeters deep and at a rate of 30 kg/ha.
Njahi is grown without any fertilisers and just manure. However, for optimal yields, DAP fertiliser can be added at a rate of 100kg per hectare In sandy soils, it performs better with Sulphur and Phosphorus fertilisers added.
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Weeding is done only once at week three to avoid the seedlings getting choked out when they are still young. Although Njahi is not affected by many pests, nematicides might come in handy as nematodes affect the plants’ deep roots. They are also sometimes susceptible to insects that feed on the seeds and their pods during grain filling.