On a Thursday morning in Bomet County, Hellen Rono is already preparing her farm for a new planting season. She has just harvested a successful crop of tomatoes, a triumph that seemed impossible a year ago.
Like most farmers in the region, Hellen had long relied on rainwater. But for her commercial ambitions, it was never enough. The cold climate posed an additional challenge, leading her to invest in a greenhouse. She believed the controlled environment was the solution. However, her first attempt ended in disaster.
"I planted tomatoes inside my greenhouse, which is eight metres by 15 metres, and they started germinating and growing well, but in the middle, the tomatoes started withering one by one, just when they were about to reach the flowering stage," Hellen recalls. The withering continued until almost 10 plants were dying each day.
Instead of giving up, she reached out to agricultural officers in the region, who upon visiting her greenhouse confirmed the plants were infected with tomato wilt. "We were told that there was no medicine. So, we were advised to irrigate the plants with a lot of water to avoid withering," Hellen recalls.
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