Proceedings of the South & East African combined agricultural, cotton, entomological and mycological conference held at Nairobi, August, 1926

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1738588467

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-115043

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Proceedings of the South & East African combined agricultural, cotton, entomological and mycological conference held at Nairobi, August, 1926

Place of publication:: Nairobi

Publisher:: East African Standard

Year of publication:: 1926

Scope:: VI, 337 Seiten; Ill.

Digitisation:: 2020

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part II. Agriculture

Collection:: Economics Books

PART IL has reached a certain stage of dryness, that is, when it will break without bending between the teeth it is ready for hulling. Tt is then graded, hand-picked if necessary, and bagged. Each bag is branded with the estate mark, the weight is stencilled on each bag, and it is shipped to England, where it is sold by auction on the London market. I will now tackle some of the more important sections in that chain of manipulations already mentioned. Kenya, as a coffee growing country, is oné in which conditions vary almost every ten miles. The special value of rain to coffee is a point to be kept in mind in order that the value may be maintained or enhanced. Studies carried out for a number of years, and under varied conditions, have revealed possibilities that certain methods of training the coffee plant are more advantageous that the old-established method on the single stem system. In dealing with this subject, let it be understood, that the single stem tree will be referred to as the *“ Umbrella *’ system, and the Agobiada and Capping systems to establish multiple heads. will be referred to as the ‘“ Bush ”’ method. On individual estates in Kenya, where the acreage of coffee is about 100 acres, with a good labour force, and where the owner or manager has a good knowledge of the principles of pruning on the * Umbrella ’’ system, very excellent yields have been maintained. Some of these plantations, over a period of years, have yielded half a ton and more per acre of clean coffee. The average estates. however, have not achieved the same success. The ** Umbrella tree will produce heavily for a few years, but when the time arrives for careful and proper pruning, which is not generally carried out, the production is practically negligible. Speaking generally, apart from unfavourable weather conditions, the failure to achieve similar success is mainly due to labour shortage and inexperienced workers. In order to meet these deficiencies, an alteration in the method of treatment of the bushes is advocated. The ** Bush ** method was introduced by me as far back as 1916, but 1t was not seriously taken up until 1921. There are two methods of training the coffee plant to establish the ** bush ’’ system: (1) To Agobiada, that is to bend and peg the plant at an angle of 70deg. to T5deg., and allow three to four vertical shoots to grow from the base. ‘= To Cap the plant at about 12 to 16 inches from the ground level by cutting the internode adjoining matured wood, and the two primaries on opposite sides of the node are cut off to induce even growth of the pair of suckers, which are to form the future base of the tree. These shoots are capped about 24 inches from the first cap, which will result in four vertical shoots. The operation must be carried out on matured wood. It has been observed that the Agobiada method can be adopted satisfactorily in nearly all the coffee districts in the Colony, but in humid areas, where growth is very rapid, the capping system would 539)

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