Sprouting Surprise!
Darwin's checking out samples in El Naranjo We have our first samples of bean in the ground! Since July we have been promoting who we are and speaking to farmers about our certified red bean seed. Finally, planting season came in late September and October. We have about 27 people who have planted our beans! All of the samples have been a kilo's worth of seeds, with the exception being four farmers in the community of El Naranjo. We gave out five pound samples there because we gave an intro workshop and four men were very interested and showed commitment to plant the seeds. It has been a very, very rainy season in Nicaragua and even more in Jinotega. Six of these sample plots were washed away by the rains, one sample was eaten by a horse! Hurricane Julia passed in October and washed away a lot of crops. Four farmers have decided to wait until December to plant their samples. This is when the dry season starts and they can have better success in their planting. We have learned