Inside one of the fermentation rooms for the fruit waste used to produce bio-manure at Kikasa Village, Wobulenzi Town Council in Luweero District. PHOTO DAN WANDERA
Finding good soils for sustainable plant growth is increasingly becoming a nightmare for many farmers despite the diverse and abundant natural solutions that can be a stone’s throw away from the family backyard where fruit waste is left to rot away. Mr Peter Celestine Byaruhanga, a retired agricultural officer, who now spends more than 75 percent of his time at his demonstration gardens, is not sleeping on his natural abilities to discover more about the natural soil rejuvenation techniques.
The many jackfruit, pawpaw, mangoes, avocado, among other fruit trees, now form part of his research in converting fruit waste into bio-manure after 3-4 weeks of a fermentation process. “In Uganda, fruit waste is almost everywhere. You don’t have to harvest the fruits meant for human consumption unless they get wasted away. You can pick the waste fruit from any source,” he says. Byaruhanga, a resident of Kikasa village in Wobulenzi Town Council, Luweero District, seems to suggest that the living organisms contained in the bio-manure contains additional soil nutrients that last longer in the soil than the artificial fertilisers that many farmers apply at their farms in a quest for a better harvests and sustained soil fertility.
The process
When the jackfruit (ffenne), avocado and pawpaw fruit get ripe, Byaruhanga harvests and chops them into small pieces. Unlike the other farmers that would pick only the fruit waste, he gets the fruits as soon as they ripen because he has purposed the fruits for research.
He then mixes the chopped pieces with water in containers (100-litre drums, 20-litre empty paint gallons). He then covers the containers for the solution to begin the fermentation process. He later uncovers the containers and allows the fermentation process to take its course naturally through the 3-4 weeks period. Surprisingly, Byaruhanga explains that the pawpaw acts as the catalysing agent, which is a must in addition to the content under fermentation.
This takes between three and four weeks. The containers are kept in-door to avoid direct sunshine (heat) to protect the microbes from direct light, heat and preserve the moist environment needed for the fermentation process. “You see, when you enter the fermenting house, the small flying insects are around and the place is dark and moist. These conditions are necessary because the microbes that form the basis for the organic manure are very delicate and need this type of protection.
The sweet aroma from the rotting/fermenting fruit solution attracts the flying insects that also help boost the microbe development for the fermenting solution,” he clarifies. When you visit the fermentation rooms, you could easily describe Mr Byaruhanga as a dirty and disorganised man because of the smell from the rotting fruits.
But Byaruhanga is quick to explain that this is part of the fermentation and only conducive environment for the development of the fruit waste baste manure. The frothy solutions are precariously self-heating from the ‘inside-the-rooms’ conditions, where temperatures are warm and all solutions are kept intact inside. Nothing is kept outside the house. After 3-4 weeks or slightly more depending on the need for one to quickly apply the manure, the bio-manure, which is in solution form, is now ready to be applied to the garden area.
But unlike many farmers that apply the manure close to the plant, Byaruhanga advises that the Bio-manure is applied at least 3-5ft from the plant for better results. Byaruhanga’s home is in a serene, un-noisy leafy environment where only birds’ melodic trills, whistled tunes and chirps, serenades a visitor on arrival. The other impressions, for a keen observer, are bees flying in and out of windows and doors of both the fermentation rooms and his main house.
Testing and application of the manure
Byaruhanga has made his gardens the demonstration plots for the bio-organic manure manufactured from the fruit waste. “A month after the yeast-microbes settling in my fruit-water-based solutions and causing fermentation, what were original fruits and water, metamorphose into a watery/liquid fertiliser solution that is rich in vitamins, zinc, nitrogen, potassium, phosphates, phosphorous all in microscopic form, but absorbable by the tiny fruit-tree roots or any other crop that take in micronutrients,” he says.
He applies the fertilisers in solution form by pouring at very far-off points from the trunks of his fruit trees/ crops. He also covers the manure with grass; fibres/banana stems so that the solution-based manure does not get much heat to quickly evaporate into the atmosphere. “The mistake with many farmers is to think that the manure must be applied directly on the plant.
Mr Peter Celestine Byaruhanga prepares to harvest a jack fruit at his garden for the fruit waste manure fermentation process at Kikasa Village in Wobulenzi, Luweero District PHOTO BY DAN WANDERA
Unless the type of manure applied is fed through the leaves and stem, the bio-organic manure that targets the root pores of the plant will easily be absorbed through the root pours that are spread far from the plant stock. This is the reason why we have to apply the manure at least 4-5ft off the plant stem,” he says.
Responding to climate change
Byaruhanga says his bio-manure from the waste fruit mixed with biochar has proved to be an important addition to soil moisture preservation natural technology on top of maintaining soil fertility. The biochar gathered from abandoned charcoal burning and collecting areas can be gathered locally, Byaruhanga explains. Byaruhanga cuts branches of mature trees [biomass], chops them in logs and burns them in a specially dug pit he creates for purposes of getting the biochar and not charcoal. The burning is to create charcoal for black-carbon converted from the burnt wood. When fully ready as charcoal, the burning is disrupted, to avoid things burning into ash.
Charcoal pieces are crushed into smaller sizes, able to act as biochar. When applied to the garden soil, the garden is fully bio-fertilised, rich in biochar, fungus-infested, fermented fruit solution and decaying leaves that fall from the trees above make Byaruhanga’s demonstration gardens evergreen while soil fertility is what a keen and observant visitor at his farm can quickly notice. When walking at sections of his garden, the soft soil under one’s feet possibly alludes to the fact that the soils are different and have got an additional ingredient that makes them soft.
This is the result of bio-manure and biochar application, Byaruhanga explains in an interview. Weeds are absent at his farm that has an undergrowth of a diversity of plants, among them a variety of yams (koobe, balugu, nandigoya, endaaggu, ekisebe, kaama) that are climbing yams that grow throughout the year despite the harsh weather conditions experienced in parts of the cattle corridor areas of the greater Luweero. There’s also obukuupa (cocoa non-climber yams and the ekinzaali (yellow curry)—all growing underneath plants in this organic garden, often visited by monkeys. “Yes, monkeys are regulars who come for ripe jackfruits and other fruits.
They come for low-hanging fruits, which if near the ground, they grab and run off, to gnaw it from one corner of the garden,” he says. Byaruhanga has spent more than a 20 year focusing on the ‘neglected and under-utilised fruit trees which are conventionally unprioritised for additional soil fertility. “People think that crops can thrive on their own without any form of protection in this climate change era and have their eyes fixed on the artificial means of protecting the soils and environment.
The conventional Euro-led agricultural training and field work puts emphasis on chemical-based fertilisers, mechanised land preparation, weeding and harvesting, which may not be enough to overturn the devastated natural soil cover,” he says.
Byaruhanga, who has been visited by a series of soil science research individuals and key officials from the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, to find out about his effort in generating bio-manure from fruit waste, says the disappointment is in the many visitors who are failing to utilise his free of charge technology. “Our researchers and farmers want quick ways of getting the manure.
Even our farmers don’t want to get dirty and are not prepared to have rotting material at their respective gardens,” he says. The government officials who have visited Byaruhanga’s farm include the late Dr Wilberforce Kisamba Mugerwa, an agricultural economist who encouraged him to go for collaborative research that can help in ensuring that the rich research and discoveries are quickly disseminated down to the farmers.
What other soil scientists say
Mr Wilson Abel Ssekibaala, an agriculturalist and retired assistant commissioner at the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, says that fruit waste contains micronised fungus that is essential for secondary metabolisation process of the soils.
The bio-manure from the waste fruit is a more conventional form of nitrogen fixation while the biochar greatly boosts water retention in the soil and enhancement of nutrient availability in the soil. “There is no doubt that the fruit waste can provide one of the best bio-manure because of its rich content for the microorganisms that help fertilise the soils quickly. We need to find ways of neutralising the toxic chemical effects that come with many artificial fertilisers,” he says.
