Coffee & Tea

Tea (Camellia sinendis) is a highland growing cash Crop which can be categorized in groups according to their colour i.e. black tea, yellow tea, white tea and purple tea.

Coffee plants come in two main varieties: Coffee Arabica and Coffee Robusta.

Coffee is one of the world’s largest traded commodity in over sixty countries. therefore being a livelihood provider to over 25,000,000 families around the world. About 70% coffee of Kenyan coffee is produced by small scale farmers. It is estimated 6million Kenyans are employed directly or indirectly by the check coffee sector.

For optimum production, the crop should be provided with a proper nutrition. This includes both macro and micronutrients which is achieved through application of basal and foliar fertilizers. After pruning your coffee trees well, hoed up the weeds, then apply fertilizer.

Weeds are a major problem in many crops and coffee is not an exception. They infest these crops in nurseries to established plantations where a large number of perrenial and annual weeds grow. The commonly found weeds in coffe include,pig weed, blackjack, gallant soldier Mexican marigold,wandering jew,nutgrass, love grass,couch grass, star grass just to mention a few.

Coffee farming is not like any other crop. Its farming activities require timeliness without delay for a farmer to be able to increase productivity and get good quality beans. Delays in conducting coffee farming husbandry lead to loss of yield and increase in cost of production especially in disease and pest management.

Coffee ranks as one of the world’s most valuable and widely traded commodity crops and is an important export product of several countries. It is one of the most important cash crops in Kenya, where it is grown in both large and small scale plantations.

Coffee is attacked by many pests, among which are green scales, brown scales, white waxy scales and star scales. Scales, together with Kenya mealy bugs, suck sap from coffee plant tissues, especially the soft and succulent ones. This leads to reduction in the quantity and quality of coffee that is produced.