University of Eldoret

The University of Eldoret (UoE) (http://www.uoeld.ac.ke) is a public university whose vision is to be a premier university that is globally visible in knowledge generation and technological innovations and a mission of providing high quality education and training, in Science, Agriculture and Technology that promotes networking, partnerships and linkages with other institutions and industry. The School of Agriculture and Biotechnology (SAB) at UoE was established in 1991 as a graduate faculty with the specific objective of training highly skilled manpower in Agricultural Research, Production and Extension. The School now offers B. Sc, M Sc. and PhD programs as well as Diploma and Certificate Courses to suitably qualified candidates. The School has highly qualified and experienced staff in Soil Science, Seed Science, Horticulture, Biotechnology & Plant Breeding, Animal Science and other Agricultural Sciences. The School has many active linkages with many Institutions as well as some local, Regional and International Universities. SAB prides itself in working with the farming community within the environs of the University and makes use of funded projects to create a platform for effective outreach in different areas of agriculture.

CONNESSA is hosted in the Department of Soil Science and is being implemented in Western Kenya. In SSC department of UoE, CONNESSA seeks to understand the soil physical characteristics that cause poor responsiveness to fertilizer application and thereafter asses the effects of application of FYM as a source of SOM and other soil amendments on the same and eventually crop productivity. The CONNESSA Project builds on ongoing projects (VLIR_SAB & RUFORUM) working on poor responsive soils in western Kenya. The VLIR-SAB project hypothesizes that poor responsiveness of the soil results from high sand content and a slope gradient greater than 5% while the RUFORUM project hypothesizes that poor responsiveness of soils results from low pH, deficiencies of primary macronutrients (N, P and K) and some micronutrients such as Zinc and that these soils produce low quality food and fodder in crop-livestock integrated systems. By adding organic materials, it is expected that the poor responsiveness will be alleviated due to noted roles that soil organic matter plays in physical, chemical and biological aspects. Data for CONNESSA project is collected from Busia, Bungoma and Vihiga Counties and we contribute to the consortium by providing information from experimentation that will be used in the plot- and landscape-scale simulations and therefore directly linking to UH.