Project Mature Bean, third cycle

 January 12 - 15 we harvested our third crop of beans! This time we earned a profit, despite a flooded field then a drought for the last part of the growing cycle! 

Jari enjoying our progress

The oppertunity came up for us to be able to plant a whole manzana (1.7 acres) of land for free! A friend loaned us some land he was not using while waiting to start some construction. We planned on planting corn, because we did not have personal experience with some of the varieties we have available for farmers in our program. However, as the rains for the second planting cycle delayed, we needed to change our crop options. Corn requires a lot of water, and the growing season is longer, around 100 days. In average years the rains would start in September, but October was already starting, and there was still no rain! We called an irrigation company for an assessment of the well on the property. They said the well was shallow, and they warned us with the current lack of rainfall we could not expect the well to sustain the irrigation needed for the corn. Adding to our trouble, was the 100 day growing season. This places harvest time well into the dry season of February and March. The, El Niño, phenomenon was in full development, or as they say here in Nicaragua, the boy was angry! 

Since beans only require a 73 day planting cycle, and much less water, we planted beans once again! Rains finally started to fall in the second week of October. We needed to wait a week so the soil could get to the right humidity. The field was very dry, there were deep cracks and fissures! This field was used for baseball in its past life. It was very compacted and needed to be tilled. We hired a man with a tractor to till the field for us. There was another week of delay, until the tractor driver said the soil was moist enough to be tilled! October 19, the field was finally tilled! The tractor driver did not own a seed planter, so we had to hire a team of oxen to make the rows for planting. The next day the oxen driver came and made rows in the field until about 1 p.m. The high sun makes it to hot for the oxen and they quit working by then. The team was scheduled to come back the next day, but he wanted to charge double the price! So a decision was made to finish planting the beans with stakes. There was difficulty finding labor for the planting work, it is good to have experienced men for planting with a stake. Darwin also had a learning curve, as this was his first time using the stake for planting! A corner of the field would not be planted, as the sun dried the dirt and it was to hard to drive a stake into it, so we lost a large corner of the field.

A freshly tilled field

The hard workers rest!

A few weeks later a lot of rain fell onto the crops and washed some soil away and flooded portions of the field. We made drains during the rains to help with flooding. the worst part of the field was where home plate used to be! In the corner where we could not plant, there was standing water for a few weeks, so it worked out we couldn't plant there, as bean crops would have drowned. By mid season the rains slowed down and eventually stopped in December. This is when the winds are really strong in Nicaragua and we began to see wind damage. Some plants broke and leaves were affected. However we had good flowering in our beans and they did not get affected. Then, a cow slithered under the barbed wire fence! So, we chased it out of our field! It was a wild seen, like we were hunting beef with spears! We didn't catch it, as it ran back to slither under the same spot in the fence. Cows do not look that agile and flexible, but they can move when they need to!

Threshing time

Our agronomist Darwin, had his struggles in this project, the biggest challenge to overcome was finding labor. This is a problem for all of the farmers in our region. So many people have left Nicaragua, the lack of labor has forced farmers to plant smaller areas. This means we need to rely more on mechanization. We have a threshing machine, and this helps a lot with labor and time. We harvested 1,600 pounds of beans. Our largest harvest to date! Even with the crop losses we suffered, we still made a $200 profit! Not bad, and we are celebrating that after three planting cycles, our final numbers were black!  

We have decided to take some time off from planting. These last three cycles have taught us a lot. We will focus on purchasing some land for Avodah Farm. So we don't have to keep migrating to different fields and learning the terrain each planting cycle. Darwin will be spending more time out in the communities, looking for new farmers to add to our agricultural program. 

Darwin happy harvest

Read about our progress in bean planting: project mature bean, project mature bean part 2, mature bean second cycle