Tephrosia is effective at controlling mole rats

Under ground rats feed on the roots and lower stems of many crop types including sweet potatoes and cassava. This leads to death of plants there by causing to low yields which affects farmers. They are among the most destructive pests to these crops as they can affect the whole garden.

To control mole rats effectively, plant scattered plants of tephrosia in
the garden and as a boarder around the whole garden.

The Leaves and roots of this tree contain a toxic compound called rotenone, which when eaten by rats can kill them. It also leads to death of many othe r insect types when eaten.

How ever after controlling the rats, remove the plant from the garden as it is dangerous to many other animals.

Also after removing it avoid planting beans and tomatoes because it spreads root note nematodes which mostly affect these 2 crop types. Plant such crops may be after 2 years.

By Mary Nakirya

Garden sanitation is garden hygiene. It involves removal and destruction of sources of diseases, pest infested crops and weeds from the field.

It is important in all field activities especially because un clean fields lead to multiplication od pests and re infection of diseases. One of the biggest problems of farmers in most developing countries is that of pests and disease. It should how ever be noted that these can be minimized if maximum hygiene is kept in the garden.

While carrying out garden sanitation, it is important that even support plants or items are removed before the next crop is planted. For example people who plant tomatoes continuously need to remove the support poles before the next season. When other tomatoes are planted,new poles should be used.

Good practices include:

Removal of  all the crop residues after harvest. Barry these in the ground or even add these to your compost pile.

Remove all diseased crops carefully making sure that there is no close contact with health plants.

Pruning is important as weeding takes place to remove diseased and extra branches.

Clean all farm tools including hoes,panga,knives,gumboots and ploughs as these may be transmitters of diseases and pests.

In case of fruits, remove all those that are rotten or beginning to rot and bury them in the ground.

While weeding, ensure that all weeds are removed and buried in the ground. Also areas around the garden need to be weeded as these may act as habitats for pests.

The water channels in the plantations also need to be kept clean at all times.

Leave spaces where people pass so as they don’t pass every where in the garden.

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Ticks transmit  many diseases to cattle,goats and sheep leading to heavy losses to the farmers.

Control them by getting 20 grams of dried tobacco leaves,add a pinch of water and keep for six hours. After that time, add 5 litres of water and spray on the affected animals. Also you may spray in the house for effective control.

Crushed tephrosia can also  be used as a spray against ticks.

It is advisable to spray or deep once a week until no signs are seen.

They are easy to look after and dont need so much space. Feeding them is also not so costly as they eat lots of grass which are available in many farms as weeds.

While constructing a house for rabbits, make sure it is dry, clean, airy and free from direct wind.

The hutch is a cage used to house rabbits. The hutch should be sufficiently large, well ventilated and risen from the ground.

It should have enough wind breaks, adequate room for expansion, provide sleeping house with floor spacing of 2 ft x 3ft and a feeding room separate from the main rooms with leak proof roofs, a play rail in front and behind the verandah away from the direction of the sun and wind.

The house should be well ventilated to allow enough air in and out. This controls diseases.

The size
An average sized doe and her litter can be housed in a 1m long by 0.6m wide and 0.4m (3ft long by 2ft wide and 1.6ft high.

The floor of the hutch can be made of either wire netting of 1cm mesh or wooden slats set 1cm apart. The sleeping quarters may have wooden floors, feeding and watering troughs.

It is important that the hutch is divided into exercise and sleeping quarters. Construct the exercise ground by building ladders with the help of timber or sticks raising up to enable them to climb.

Rabbits can be grazed outside when there is plenty of green grass. This system is known as the morant system and in this case, a morant hutch is used.
A morant22 hutch is a basketlike cage which is built and transferred to different grazing areas.

Rabbits are omnivorous animals that eat many food types. To feed, provide them with potato vines, cabbage leaves, black jack, kales, calliandra, maize bran, potatoes, sesbania, mineral lick and clean water for drinking.

Do not place feeds on ground to prevent disease. Always hang feeds on a stand in the feeding area to avoid dampness. Feed animals from a trough to avoid wastage.

Don’t change rabbits’ food too often because they don’t like seeing food often and may refuse to eat it.

Ensure that cold, fresh water is readily available for them

They produce many young ones at ago and do not take long to produce again.

Of late the meat can be sold for consumption in many hotels and for other products like wool.

These are small insects that suck blood from birds. They are one of the biggest problems in poultry keeping especially to laying birds. They usually hide during day and at night they return to the birds to feed causing severe irritation and stress. They can be carried into your flock from wild birds and can survive without feeding for over eight months. They can also be spread by rodents that enter the poultry houses.

Signs of Red Mites
 They hide around perch ends & cracks in the walls or wood
 Anaemia and death in young chickens
 Pale comb and wattles
 Restlessness
 Blood spots on eggs
 Birds may stop laying eggs
 Reduction in egg laying

Prevention
 Keeping the beddings clean and fresh, change the litter atleast every 4 months. And removal of feathers.
 Periodic scrubbing of the feeders and nesting boxes with soap and water
 Regular inspecting of the poultry house to hold the problem before harming the chickens.

Natural Control
 Use of garlic:
It is believed that the red mite don’t like the smell that comes off the skin or the taste of blood after the birds have eaten garlic. Thus garlic is a good pesticide to repel them. To make the pesticide crush a hand full of fresh or dried garlic cloves into water. Give the birds to drink at their pace. The garlic can also be added in the chicken food.
 Remove all the birds, clean the house removing the movable beddings and pile the rubbish in sacks or burn them so as they don’t enter the house again
 Spray all the cracked areas in the room
 Leave the house to dry before putting back the birds
 Spray every after 5-6 days before the mites reproduce again
 Crush fresh Eucalyptus leaves and mix in bedding to repel mites.
 Using dust, sand or ash, make a dusting box for your chickens. A dust bath can act as a natural way to getting rid of external parasites since they use it for bathing. Also one can add artificial dusting powders to dust baths so that it gets into the places you have missed. When mites try to enter the birds, they will rub against the pesticide.
 Mixture Paraffin and Vaseline and smear into cracks and fractures on the wall and wood. It chokes the mites killing them.

Some of the major causes of cannibalism include

• Boredom especially among birds confined in very small areas,
• Lack or a deficiency of nutrients in a poultry ration may lead to irritation of the birds which may eventually lead to cannibalism in the flock
• An abrupt change in the tastiness of the food ration may also be a contributing factor because birds are then forced to spontaneously seek alternative sources of food.
• Poor ventilation, high temperature, low humidity, excessive population density are some of the environmental conditions that may lead to this vice.
• During egg laying the cloaca / vent may become damaged and swollen especially with the passage of large eggs and this protrusion of the vent may attract other birds to peck this part due to its red color difference against the white body.

How to reduce cannibalism

The best way to prevent cannibalism is debeaking of birds as recommended. How ever the following can also help to reduce it;

pay particular attention to the dietary factors by ensuring the birds get enough protein and sodium.

Make sure the food given to the birds in palatable enough and in case of any change in food type, do it gradually.

Avoid over crowding of the birds because this may also push them to start the vice. This is because when birds are overcrowded, its hard to ensure enough supply of food and water.

Most farmer enjoy planting and eating avocado in their homes because it has a higher nutrient values. The problem is that some end up harvesting avocado fruits with brown patches or spots on the fruit skins. This may be due to the damage done by thrips. But in most cases the farmer is un aware.
Thrips belong to the insect order of Thysanoptera which means fringe wings, and there are many species of thrips known of which just 1% are pests.
Thrips is a Latin word from the Greek for wood louse; and they are typically small, slender bodied insects a round 0.5-15cm in length. Although winged, thrips are poor fliers; they can be transported long distances by winds or storms. The majority of thrips feed on plant juice, some species are predators, and others feed on pollen, fungi, decaying vegetations or are omnivorous.
Thrips have usual mouth parts in that they only have one mandible and this single mandible is used like a needle to puncture plant tissue from which food and liquids are siphoned into the mouth through a straw like structure which is formed from moveable appendages around the mouth.
Female thrips lay eggs in the incision made into soft plant tissue with the ovipositor and eggs are kidney shaped and whitish – yellow color; the predator thrips type lays eggs on leaf surfaces. Following egg hatch, thrips pass through two actively feeding immature stages called larvae and all thrips species have more than one pupil stage.
The first pupil stage is the propupa and the second is the pupae and thrips don’t feed as pupae and many drop into the soil and leaves. Adult thrips move back onto the host plant to commence feeding and reproduction.
When they are disturbed they run to the leaf edges and move to the leaf under surface and larvae’s are most commonly found on the underside of the leaves. Avocado thrips larvae and adult feed on developing fruits while hiding under. This destroys the fruits.

This is a traditional system of rearing pigs and under this system a farmer put up a kraal to keep in few pigs during the night and allowed to move freely to feed when and where they can find food during the day. Or they are tied up using a rope at night and during the day they move freely.

Pigs may receive supplementary feed if it is available and this is generally of low nutritional quality such as banana and maize stalks, rice brand and other local plants and by products of beer making and kitchen waste.

This can be best to indigenous breeds of pigs, because they are adapted to the local environment and they are relatively small in size and high mobility renders them best able to cope with the condition. But this will result in the sows to breed irregularly, piglet mortality is high, and growth rate is low.

Some farmers do the same with exotic breeds and cross breeds which cause a number of losses and in this case they become discouraged due to the loss met. We must know that pigs reared in this system are susceptible to infestation with parasite and curry heavy burden of intestinal round worms and tapeworms. A particular hazard pigs can access sources of parasites e.g. human excrete which they may eat then transmit back to man when he eats the pock.

A majority of scavenger pigs are owned by subsistence farmers and are not productive in any particular modern market.

Fellow farmers try to improve and modernize our piggery farming for a better market and good profits.

The best method is semi intensive or indoor rearing.

BY MULOPI JOSEPH,

While planting any crop it is important to space appropriately depending on the type of crop size and root system. Those with wider roots and leaves need much bigger space than those with smaller roots.

Every plant requires enough space for developing. When plants are too close to each other, they end up being overcrowded which later leads to stunting of the crops and resultant poor yields.

Before planting any crops it is important to get a guide on how to space the crop. Some of the reasons for proper spacing include;

It allows plants to develop to their full potential on top and underneath ground.

Adequate space ensures less competition for sunlight, water and fertilizers.

Spacing can also prevent the spread of pests and diseases from one plant to another.

Papaws contain a compound that kills insects and microbe cells. It can be used as a herb against several insect types.

Mix 1 kg of crushed pawpaw leaves with 1 litre of water, then filter and dilute with soapy water at a ratio of 1:4 and apply as a spray against insects. Add two spoons of paraffin to five litres of this mixture to make a spray against aphids, caterpillars, termites and cutworms.

It is important that before using such a mixture to the full plant, apply on a small portion then if there is no effect apply on the whole plant. This is because some plants have a protective layer which can be disrupted by soap mixtures.