Agriculture in Kenya - Conventional Growing

Conventional Growing

Because of pests, disease and decreased soil nutrients, farmers are rotating their sweet potato plants as much as possible, which means using a field for sweet potato plants only once every 5 years, and not having the crop in the same field for two consecutive years. “Planting rice between two sweet potato crops have long been suggested." When sweet potatoes and rice crops were planted in fields adjacent to each other, the sweet potato weevil infestation level dropped. “Reduced weevil damage was observed when sweet potato was intercropped with proso millet and sesame, but sweet potato yield was also considerably reduced. The sweet potato has been found to inhibit germination of proso millet." This crop rotation and growing pattern is very common in Africa.

Weed control requires many hours of manual labor. Uncontrolled weed growth reduces crop yield by as much as 60 percent. “Some farmers solve this problem by cultivating a smaller area, but this also reduces total yields. Herbicides are too expensive for most smallholders." When the sweet potato plant is propagated a number of consecutive times, the yield decreases and virus build-up increases. "Viruses can be removed by heat treatment. The process usually increases the yield product of both vine and roots, from 20 percent to 200 percent, depending on the severity of the original virus infestation".