Wheat field as viewed from the bottom of our gardenThis is a photograph which I took today, of the wheat fields in front of our house. They were planted about a month ago, and should be ready for harvesting in June. If I walk down to the edge of our garden (the garden boundary is the wooden fence that is just visible in the photo) and I look out over the fence, this is what I see.
We practice crop rotation on our farm, and in previous years have grown both bean and safflower crops on this same area of land.
This season we have planted 1000 acres of wheat in total. We have planted 6 different (local) varieties of wheat and if the crop is good, the yield will be around 2 ½ tons per acre. This is one of our crops which is grown for the local Tanzanian market (the others are exported). We supply one of the largest millers/bakeries in the country, who mill the wheat in to flour and they also make bread from it. Once we have harvested it, they send their trucks in to collect the crop directly from the farm (which can be fun and games during the rainy weather - but that’s another story !)
All this wheat has been planted using the Zero Till method which I talked about the other day. Spraying is done by tractor but if we have a sudden emergency (disease or insects) then we spray by air. We have our own bush airstrip on the farm and we have a crop spraying company which comes in from Kenya to spray for us.
The lines of trees which are visible in the photograph act as wind breaks.
I’ll post some more photo’s as the wheat nears harvesting stage … it is a “pretty” crop once fully grown - especially when the wind ripples through the lush, green fields and creates a wave like effect.
We practice crop rotation on our farm, and in previous years have grown both bean and safflower crops on this same area of land.
This season we have planted 1000 acres of wheat in total. We have planted 6 different (local) varieties of wheat and if the crop is good, the yield will be around 2 ½ tons per acre. This is one of our crops which is grown for the local Tanzanian market (the others are exported). We supply one of the largest millers/bakeries in the country, who mill the wheat in to flour and they also make bread from it. Once we have harvested it, they send their trucks in to collect the crop directly from the farm (which can be fun and games during the rainy weather - but that’s another story !)
All this wheat has been planted using the Zero Till method which I talked about the other day. Spraying is done by tractor but if we have a sudden emergency (disease or insects) then we spray by air. We have our own bush airstrip on the farm and we have a crop spraying company which comes in from Kenya to spray for us.
The lines of trees which are visible in the photograph act as wind breaks.
I’ll post some more photo’s as the wheat nears harvesting stage … it is a “pretty” crop once fully grown - especially when the wind ripples through the lush, green fields and creates a wave like effect.
