The technology evaluation was done during the farmers’ field day held on 17th December, 2019 at VLIR-UOS experimental site. The objective of the exercise was to give farmers opportunity to evaluate the best performing technologies and those that would suits their various farming condition. In addition, they were to identify the technologies they could easily take up in their farms towards improving their crop productivity. Farmers evaluation of the best performing technology was also to help identify the technologies to be out-scaled in the farmer’s field under researcher designed and managed trials. The on-farm trials are to be used as demonstration and training sites for farmers on the use of the selected climate smart technologies. This will form part of the promoting and popularising the selected technologies for uptake among the community.
The evaluation was done at the end of the 1st of the 4-year project, and the second season of the project life (Short rains (SR) 2019). It was the during the 9th week of the season. Sorghum growth stage was at soft dough while the green grams were forming the pods. The SR 2019 was a successful season due to sufficient rains received. The effects of the various technologies were visually apparent, therefore, it was the perfect time for farmers’ evaluation. Farmers’ could easily asses the best performance based on observable physiological features of crop such as the leaf colour, plant vigour, tiller number and the head size of the sorghum.