Mixed Broad acre Cropping - Malawi

WJ was involved with a broad acre cropping consultancy/ management contract for a client in Malawi growing close to 3 000ha of seed and stock grains, legumes and oilseed crops. Due to the large areas needing cultivation and harvesting the big boys toys were brought in.

Farming in the Desert - WJ experience in Abu Dhabi

Certainly one of the most challenging assignments to date was being requested to take over the management and rehabilitate a project in the Western Region of Abu Dhabi. Having mainly worked in Tropical and Sub Tropical regions we were now going to an arid region with less than 2 inches (50mm) of rain per year and temperatures in summer approaching 50 deg C and be expected to produce crops 52 weeks of the year. 

32 greenhouses with wet wall cooling systems were on the farm but most were in a neglected state requiring a lot of maintenance.

Before and After photo's are often the best way to present a case so below is a series of before and afters.

 

 

 

 

  

Greenhouse Project in Philippines

Romblon Island Fresh Project - Romblon, Philippines

WJ was contracted to design and construct for Romblon Island Fresh simple, sustainable and low cost greenhouse technology suitable for growing salad vegetables at sea level in a tropical typhoon prone area utilizing local available materials and local labor. After due consultation it was decided that bamboo would be the most suitable material as it is both strong and flexible, allowing for the weight of the crop to be supported, with a plastic roof to carry off rain water and net side and top vent to allow for cooling and in the case of typhoons to minimize wind resistance.

 Site survey and pegging 

 Inspection and setting of casting moulds

 Casting complete and shuttering removed. Note banana stem (circle) in center of block. Once the concrete had dried the banana stem is cut out leaving a perfect hole for the bamboo upright to slot into.

 Bamboo drying after soaking in sea to make termite proof

 Start of construction

 Local materials and local craftsmen

 Construction taking on a form

 Framework in place ready for covering

 Side walls with "Virus Proof" netting

 Plastic UV plastic with Virus Proof side walls

 Completed roofing showing top vent

 Primary land preparation 

 Second phase of 1st Unit starting

 Simple but effective gutter to drain rain water

 Raised growing beds with drip irrigation

 Simple valve cluster with inline filter for drip irrigation. A simple 120lt drum with a venturi valve was installed on the system to allow for fertigation.

 Completed 1st Phase of 8 Greenhouses. Note saw tooth design for venting of hot air and pitch of roof for rainwater drainage.

 1st Crop of Cucumbers with trellesing in place

 1st Cucumber crop in flower

 Healthy crop of cucumbers

 Quality 1st Crop

 Abundant quality cucumbers

 Harvest ready for grading

 Sweet Corn planted to biologically plough the beds

The land available for this project was an old paddy field of very dark heavy clay soil with and very hard pan about 40cm under the surface, as such drainage was very bad. It was decided to break this hard pan as far as possible using picks and forming raised beds to improve drainage. It later became evident that this was insufficient so it was then decided to insert drainage points throughout the greenhouses by inserting perforated pipes going down into the sandy subsoil layers. This vastly improved the drainage resulting in much healthier crops during the rainy season with less standing water, less algae growth on beds and less fungal disease problems.  

In order to improve soil drainage it was also decided to plant sweetcorn as a biological plough. Sweetcorn with it deep penetrating root system was able to penetrate into the hard pan and thus loosen up the soil better than was achieved by workers during primary land preparation. In addition sweetcorn is a highly sought after crop on Romblon thus bringing in a good return.