Implementation

For the project implementation we approached 3 farmers, Mrs Collette Katooah from Bois Rouge, Mr Rakesh Ujoodhea from Mont Ida and Mr Kishore Lalloo from Creve Coeur to establish a working relationship and to trial these solutions. One challenge we faced was that despite being provided with the plastic containers and crates we collected, some of them continued to use them for their traditional practices of seedling farming as shown in the picture below.

We had to then construct the protypes ourselves in their presence to show them how it could be done and had to do a weekly follow up in the fields to see the progress of the plant’s growth as well as fine tuning the amount and frequency of water that needed to be added. As expected, the tomato plants flowered sooner than the traditional method. Another potential opportunity that we saw was that normally tomato plants are discarded after their first harvest as most of them are not able to stay alive to achieve the second harvest. These plants could be transplanted and shocked with extra compost to continue their second and third harvest cycles using our upside-down planters.