Site-Specific Nutrient Management Recommendations for Increased Maize Productivity in Kenya

Current fertilizer recommendations in Kenya are standard, mainly based on agro – ecological zones across very large areas of farm land not taking into account localized variations in soil fertility. IPNI’s Nutrient Expert for Hybrid Maize (NE) decision support tool is one of the initiatives aimed at supporting the development of site specific nutrient management recommendations for farmers in Kenya. The IPNI SSA program teamed up with the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO-Embu) to carry out a two day participatory learning workshop on “development and dissemination of site-specific nutrient management recommendations for increasing maize productivity in Embu” on the 19^th and 20^th of May 2015 at the KALRO– Embu Station in Eastern Kenya. The workshop which attracted 24 participants drawn from extension in the Ministry of Agriculture, KALRO-Embu and IPNI focused on yield building through proper management of plant nutrients. Also covered was the importance of site-specific nutrient management recommendations under conservation and conventional tillage systems, development of nutrient management recommendations, principles of Site-Specific Nutrient Management (SSNM), and an introduction and hands on training on the use of Nutrient Expert (NE) decision support tool in developing SSNM recommendations. Participants visited nutrient omission and Nutrient Expert validation trials in Runyenjes sub-county within Embu County. Validation of the Nutrient Expert tool and taking its use to scale will form the future direction of the collaboration between research, extension and farmers through follow up field trainings.