Sugar bean farmers urged to adopt good agronomic practices

Patience Maturure

Agriculture Reporter

SUGAR beans planting is underway across the country with experts saying high-veld areas should have completed planting by mid-February while those in the lowveld areas like Chiredzi and Mwenezi can go up to late April.

Sugar beans is one of the short season variety plant which gives foreign currency to farmers due to its demand on both local and international market.

The planting of sugar beans started either in January or mid-February depending on regions with reaping expected to happen after 85-120 days also dependent on the variety.

Agritex chief agronomist, Mrs Sibongile Mangena-Chikore said the country had many sugar beans varieties with earliest maturing ones taking just 65 days to reach physiological maturity.

“This makes such varieties ideal for late season planting and production in regions with lower rainfall potential,” she explained.

“Sugar bean farmers should follow the proper procedures on growing the crop starting from land preparations to harvesting and like any other crop sugar beans requires fertiliser management,” she added.

Weed control is also a contributing factor to the overall yields, as sugar bean plants compete poorly with weeds. Pest control is also important. Common insects that affect bean plants are the CMR beetle (blister beetle), cutworm, aphids, semi loppers, bean stem maggot, red spider mite, heliothis bollworm and rootknot nematode.

Mrs Mangena-Chikore further observed that farmers should check the field regularly for insects and diseases such as angular leaf spot, anthracnose, common blight, halo blight and bean common mosaic virus. Some of these fungal diseases may be controlled using appropriate chemicals like Glyphosate usually before land preparation at an application rate of 200mls/ 20 litres of water, Bentgran Top 240EC (Bentazone 150g/litre, Fomesafen 70g/litre, Quizalofop-p-p-ethyl 20g/ litre mulching, adopting close row spacing, uprooting the weeds, early planting and crop rotation, which is important as a disease control measure.

Sugar beans caters for a significant percentage in the gross agricultural production in Zimbabwe with Government currently working towards boosting food security nationwide.