Yellow Beans Farming in Kenya: Everything For Success Here.

Yellow beans farming in Kenya:

Do this and you will succeed beyond your wildest dreams.

A number of friends of mine, who know that I am a horticulturist consult me from time to time.

They often ask me about the prospects of growing yellow beans…

and whether it makes sense in terms of

• • Profitability,
  • Market demand,
  • and yield per acre.

As a good friend, I help them with the RIGHT advice that will help them get profit growing yellow beans.

However, I would find myself repeating the same advice, about growing yellow beans, from time to time.

So in the spirit of making my work easy…and helping my friends out, I decided to write my experience growing the yellow beans online.

This is a detailed post on yellow beans farming in Kenya.

It came about from personal experience growing yellow beans in Nyamira…

in the year 2020, at place known as Nyamabambo.

This is not something that I sat on my desk and imagined.

It is real, practical knowledge.

I gained it by making my hands dirty doing the ACTUAL yellow beans farming.

In another post that you’ll find here, you will see two guys spraying  a herbicide on a bean field.

One of the guys in the photo is me spraying the herbicide on a field I planted.

So you can rely on the information contained herein for your next bean farming project.

And oh boy, I got amazing success growing the yellow beans.

The number of bags I got from the 2-acre farm shocked neighbors, friends and enemies alike.

Want to know the secret for my success?

If you’ve answered yes, continue reading.

The Basic Steps for Yellow Beans Profitability

Ignore them and profitable bean farming will be a story to you rather than the reality.

The Right Timing

This is the key to yellow beans farming success.

You must assemble the resources you need for this venture and make timely action.

For example, you must:

• • Prepare your land on time,
  • Plant on time,
  • weed on time,
  • and do many other activities on time.

A little delay here and there and you are caught on time means your yields will be negatively affected.

Another thing to note related to timing is, “Kenya has two rainy seasons.”

• The long rains that runs from March to June.
• And the short rain season that runs from October to December.

This information is a very important aspect of yellow bean farming.

Especially if you are located in the highland areas of Kenya that receive lots of rainfall.

If you are in the highlands, don’t grow beans during the long rains.

Instead, grow the beans in the short season from October to December.

Why?

Beans require moderate rainfall to give amazing yields.

Excessive rains makes them prone to diseases like leaf rust, and even rotting.

I once warned a friend of mine against growing beans during the long rains.

But the refused.

What he saw—he will never repeat the same mistake again.

However, if you are in the drier areas of Nyanza, eastern, coast that receive moderate rains, you can grow beans both in the long and short rain season.

Use the right amount of seed per acre

One acre of land requires 25-30 kilos of yellow beans.

At this seed rate, you will space the beans at 30 cm X 30 cm to give a plant population of over 100,000 plants per acre.

It is only at this population per acre that you can achieve over 10 bags per acre.

Soil fertility and soil Type

The best type of soil for yellow beans is black cotton soil.

However, you can still get satisfactory returns from other types of soil.

In Nyamira, (the land where I planted the yellow beans) had red soil.

I good returns from the red soil.

The soil that I would discourage you from growing yellow beans is sandy soil.

Other soil types are ok.

It’s always a good idea to do a basic soil test.

Contrary to popular opinion, doing a soil test is not expensive.

In fact, you can save a great deal in terms of using incorrect fertilizers that add no benefit for your farm.

With only Ksh 3500, you can conduct a soil test that will inform you the right amounts of fertilizer to use.

Weed management in Yellow Beans.

Without proper and timely weeding, you run the risk of reduced yields.

Luckily, there are a number of herbicides that will help you control weeds on time.

I’ve already shared my experience using beans clean to control various weed in yellow beans here.

For full details, please follow the link above.

If you are starting your yellow bean farm from fallow land, I would recommend that you first spray the land with a herbicide like Roundup, Weedal, or Kausha.

This is very important since you’ll want to remove all the grass weed that often become a menace in bean farming.

In case you discover that your bean farm has grass weeds, I urge you to read this post describing the type of herbicides to fight those nasty grass weeds.

Pest Control in yellow beans:

The most important bean pest in Kenya is the bean aphid.

Luckily, the pest is very easy to control using cheap pesticides like:

• Duduthrin from Twiga chemicals,
• Bamako from Cooper chemicals,
• Lexus from green life Kenya,

To effectively control various bean pests, you’ll need 1-2 liters of a broad spectrum insecticide.

The best strategy to reduce costs on pesticides is to do spot spraying.

This is where you only spray the plants that have been affected by pests.

Disease control in Beans:

Most common bean diseases affecting yellow beans in Kenya is the bean rust.

The good news is that it is fairly easy to control.

• Bean rust – infection leads to formation of reddish brown pustules on leaves, pods and stems. Heavy infections cause plant death.

SPRAY DUCASSE 250EW 1 ml/l or RANSOM 600WP 15 g/20l

• Downy mildew –infection begins on the underside of the leaf which leads to formation of whitish or grey mass of fungal growth. The upper side of the leaf becomes chlorotic. Pods develop whitish patches.

SPRAY GEARLOCK TURBO 250WP 25 g/20l

• Anthracnose – infection causes development of brown to black sunken lesions on pods, stems and seeds. Attacked leaves have black spots.

SPRAY RANSOM 600WP 15 g/20l or ABSOLUTE 375SC 10 ml/20l

• Bacterial blight – symptoms begin as small brown blotches on the leaves which enlarge as infection continues eventually causing the leaves to fall off and subsequent death of the plant follows.

SPRAY GREEN COP 500WP 50g/20l

• Fusarium wilt – plants show sudden yellowing of leaves which eventually fall off, resulting into withering of the plant. The vascular tissues are discolored.

Drench soil with GREENCOP 500WP 5 g/l, TRINITY GOLD 425 WP2.5 g/l

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