A tale of Starke Ayres excellence at the 28th Jinja National Agricultural Show

After two years of Covid-19 around the world and several months of restricted movements and lockdowns in Uganda, farming communities were elated to attend the National Agricultural Show in August 2022.

Exhibitors put in their best efforts to present and showcase new technologies to the farming community, and the feedback received from many people was that the show had greatly improved compared to previous years.

Starke Ayres actively interacted with more than 5,000 farmers who passed through our demonstration gardens, admiring the excellent performance of our crops.

In one engagement we met a farmers’ group from Kamuli in Eastern Uganda, who shared their successes with our Kilimo F1 hybrid cabbage. Since trying Kilimo F1 hybrid, which was introduced to this market in 2017, they have not grown any other hybrid cabbage variety.

They praised Kilimo F1 hybrid for its ability to tolerate black rot (Xanthomonas spp.), its uniform head formation, attractive green and compact heads, as well as its ability to form heads less than two-and-a-half months after transplanting.

All our crops performed very well but some were outstanding. Tomatoes STAR 9065 F1 hybrid and STAR 9068 F1 hybrid showed great resilience to the dreaded bacterial wilt disease, the most common disease of economic importance in Uganda for solanaceous crops, Yields were excellent – over 150 large and colourful fruits per plant.

Tengeru Select, is an improved open-pollinated variety that has undergone rigorous selection by our research department. It offers excellent uniformity and high resistance to bacterial wilt. Its deep red, round fruits won the attention of farmers, many of whom indicated that they would use the variety in future.

Our new Yakuti F1 hybrid onion, with its attractive red bulbs, will be the product of choice for any onion farming venture in future seasons. Yakuti offers vigorous growth and high disease resistance, especially against pink root and purple blotch, and the well-closed necks give good storability.

Assorted herbs and speciality crops, such as the Duke F1 hybrid sweet pepper that ripens from green to red, was also a great attraction to many.

We appreciate the effort made by the farmers who took time out of their busy schedules to attend the National Agricultural Show and assure them that our sophisticated research unit, working closely with our marketing team, continues to breed to solve the existing and foreseen challenges of farming communities across East Africa, Africa and the world at large.