Peanut Harvesting: Powered by Oxen!

By Tiffanie Stone, CTI Intern

Rural farmers in Africa probably don’t have access to a tractor of any kind. However, they might have access to oxen. Sometimes farmers own them individually and other times a pair is shared by the whole village.

We were able to test accessible peanut harvesting technologies using oxen thanks to Oliver Kelley farm, a historical landmark. They provided the pair of oxen and three different plows to test. We did this so that the engineers from CTI could get an idea about the most useful design for peanut harvesting. These simple plows were used to cut the tap root and tip the peanut plant so the peanuts were sticking up. None of the plows worked perfectly but there was one that was clearly better than the other two. This is a good starting point for the engineers to work from. By tweaking the design here, the plow will be more suited for peanut digging in Africa. While there, other factors will need to be addressed such as the different soil types and the moisture of both the plants and the peanuts themselves. 

It was very exciting to be able to plow using a team of oxen. I do not recall ever seeing oxen before so seeing them respond to signals and being able to lead animals that large was very fun. The next day pictures appeared in the Pioneer Press.

Aside from oxen pulled technology CTI engineers are also working on a hand held prototype for farmers that do not have access to oxen. Currently, two prototypes have been tested and adjusted. The most important part about peanut harvesting is getting the tap root cut. After that the peanuts which all lie directly under that plant will come up pretty easily.

The weather is getting colder as this growing season is coming to a close. So far five bags of finger millet have been harvested. This is done by hand because most of the finger millet remained sterile. We will continue to harvest this until the killing frost. There is a bumper crop of amaranth. So far about 200 heads are being stored in the University of Minnesota seed house. I hope to increase this to 300 by next weekend.

Crops of Africa Attracts More Than Just Media Attention

By Tiffanie Stone, CTI Intern

This has been a very exciting week for everyone at CTI. We were on the front page of the Star Tribune which included a picture of Tom and me harvesting tef by hand. We were not sure if the tef was ready to harvest until we got the go ahead from a friend of Paul Porter who has had experience with tef. The one clue we had that it might be ready was the fact that the birds had found it and began pecking away. As soon as we got the go ahead we began to harvest. At first by hand but also with a small machine (a grain binder that cuts plants and ties them into small bundles) that Dr. Vern Cardwell was kind enough to bring and operate for us. However, hand harvesting ended up being the quickest, cleanest and most effective way to harvest. The tef was too lodged and biomass was too wet to make mechanical harvest effective.

Dr. Cardwell brought his honors freshman seminar titled “By the Harvest You Shall Live” in to help harvest tef. Small groups of students harvested 100 square feet putting the plant into bundles. The students then threshed and winnowed about a fourth of the grain in order gain perspective on the amount of seed they truly harvested.

The experience was a great one for everyone involved. It will be a couple weeks before we start harvesting the rest of the crops. I will be sure to let everyone know when we pick the dates because when you’re harvesting by hand, the more the merrier.

Birds and an early frost are the biggest concerns at the moment. All the crops except the Malawian variety of finger millet are filling seeds but we will need a moderate fall in order to insure the plants make it to maturity before the frost. 

Pearl Millet growing at CTI's Lost Crops of Africa Plot

A more immediate pressing issue is that of birds. There are hundreds, and I really mean hundreds of sparrows enjoying our African grains every single day. They especially love the pearl millet and the sorghum but we have seen them in every crop except for the peanuts and the finger millet. We have covered many areas of the plants with netting. Even with the netting the birds can still manage to get under it in order to eat the filling grain. We are trying to let the netting hang quite low in order to keep the birds out. Even so, they can peck through the top of the nets which means a small amount of damage will be done instead of the usual decimation which would occur if the nets were not there. Several weeks ago we set up a noise maker that sounds like a predator and a bird in distress. This kept the birds away for a total of zero days. 

They are fearless and we have begun to call the noise maker their entertainment. I find birds perching on sorghum right above it almost every time I visit the field.

Triggering Finger Millet to Flower

By Tiffanie Stone, CTI Intern

Now that summer is coming to a close weeding has become less of a priority. Most of the crops are already setting seed. However, there is still one plant that has not even begun to flower. Finger millet has been at about the same height and state for quite a few weeks now. For a while Tom Frantz and I thought that the plants had begun to flower. What we were seeing turned out to be none other than our good friend barnyard grass. Barnyard grass and assorted other weeds grew within the rows and within the bunches of plants themselves. In our plot we are growing two varieties of finger millet. One variety was brought back from Malawi with Steve Clarke. The other variety was from Dr. P.V.V. Prasad who grew it at Kansas State. After we realized that none of the finger millet had begun to flower we were briefly puzzled until we remembered something that came up many months before. 

Whilst planning for this project we read that a few of the plants may have photoperiod sensitivity. This means that if the plant is exposed to too much light it will not begin to flower. Steve Clarke went back to the Lost Crops of Africa book which confirmed that finger millet is a short-day plant with 12-hours being the optimum amount of sun exposure for most varieties. We decided to start our trial immediately. We figured that we may be able to trigger the finger millet flowering in 7 to 10 days. Paul Porter had access to a large tarp and Dick Wenkel found 6 large tubs that were not being used right on campus. Tom Frantz and I with assistance from Bert Rivers, Steve Clarke and Paul Porter have been setting up the coverings for the plants at 8 pm. We have been uncovering them by 8:30 am. This insures the plants get the full 12 hours of darkness. We started the trial on the night of Thursday the 11th. We have seen a few plants of the Kansas variety begin to flower thus far. We continued to cover the same section for the full 10 day trial. On Monday the 22nd we moved the tarp and will try to trigger flowering on another section of plants.

I would like to say a special thank you to Tom Frantz who has been a huge help with this project from the moment he heard about it. He a new volunteer at CTI and has put in countless hours weeding. He has been instrumental in this trial. This whole project has been a learning experience. Thus far, the project has been going well but we will continue to improve our methods for even more success next year.

Lost Crops of Africa: African Crops (and Weeds) Thriving

Groundnuts (peanuts) growing at the CTI/UMN plot

By Tiffanie Stone, CTI Intern

Everything is growing and thriving, including the weed population. From day one, we knew that weeds would be the biggest obstacle to overcome with this project. Most of the crops were planted in 30 inch rows which can be cultivated. The only weeds we need to worry about with these are within the rows, thanks to Dick Winkel and his cultivator. Watching Dick handle this one- row cultivator is like watching a master at work.

The teff varieties and the amaranth were planted in 6 inch rows which makes it impossible to cultivate and difficult to hand weed. To help control the weeds we used herbicides. We sprayed Select on the amaranth two weeks ago which killed all the grass weeds. It took several days for Select to kick in, but it kicked all the grasses effectively. Now the biggest problems are the many off types and red root pigweeds that need to be pulled by hand. This week we sprayed the teff with a broad leaf herbicide called Arctic 3.2. It worked like a charm; the effects could be seen the very next day. Hopefully, they will kill the broad leaf weeds completely. Grasses, especially barn yard grass still needs to be pulled out from the teff, but the herbicide was a huge help.

Due to the warm weather we had quite a leaf hopper population in the groundnuts (peanuts). Leaf hoppers are partial to legumes, so only the groundnuts were infested. They were just starting to show signs of distress. Thankfully, we were able to diagnose and spray with an insecticide to take care of the problem. The peanuts may need to be sprayed every two weeks. We will spray on at an as needed basis.

Having the support of the many great people at the U of M and at CTI has been invaluable. I don’t believe in magic elves, so I know some of you are weeding when I am not here. I see the evidences all the time. You are all making this project possible. I want to end with a big thank you to all who have contributed to the project in any way, shape or form. I so appreciate it!

Rescuing the Lost Crops of Africa

For the second time in just three years, we are facing a global food crisis as a result of rapidly rising food prices. In developing countries, where individuals often spend half of their income on food, record high food prices have pushed 44 million people into extreme poverty and hunger since June of 2010. As the world’s population grows, spikes in food prices are expected to continue, and important safety nets such as emergency food aid will not be able to keep up.

CTI is committed to creating inventive, sustainable solutions to address these challenges. Simply growing more food is not enough—not when between 15-50% of crops are lost after harvest, often due to post-harvest spoilage and inefficient processing methods.

In our Saint Paul workshop, CTI’s engineers have developed a prototype grain processing system that significantly reduces post-harvest losses, essentially doubling the amount of pearl millet grain farmers can produce. Though we are thrilled with the results, gaining access to pearl millet grain for testing prototypes has been a challenge. Pearl millet may feed 500 million people in Africa and Asia, but you won’t find freshly harvested pearl millet to test in Minnesota. While some grain stocks have been made available from generous donors such as USDA in Georgia, without ready access to pearl millet and other African crops, CTI’s engineers often have to send even initial prototypes oversees for testing during harvest seasons — a costly, slow process and a barrier to innovation.

The Lost Crops of Africa project is a collaboration between CTI and the University of Minnesota (UMN) to grow seven African crops on one acre of land at UMN’s Saint Paul campus. With assistance from Professor Paul Porter and student assistant Tiffanie Stone, CTI will grow tef, finger millet, sorghum, fonio, pearl millet, grain amaranth, and groundnuts for processing. Although these crops are often unheard of by those living in more developed countries, they are commonly grown in different parts of Africa, where millions of people depend on them for their daily sustenance.

CTI will use the harvested African crops to develop and test post-harvest farming devices and tools for subsistence farmers. Growing the crops so close to home will allow our engineers to more easily refine new equipment to suit a particular crop. This way, when CTI brings new prototypes to Africa, we can minimize last minute “surprises” and reduce the time needed to reach user-acceptable solutions. Ultimately, this means CTI will be able to deliver more appropriate technologies faster and at a lower cost to our donors and our end-users.

In addition to the one acre plot of land, UMN has generously provided a student assistant to help oversee the Lost Crops of Africa program. Tiffanie Stone is studying Applied Plant Science and International Agriculture at UMN. Tiffanie will be contributing to CTI’s blog, where she’ll write updates on the challenges and triumphs that are thrown our way.