Simon Lohay, a 48 years man, married with 4 children (aged between 7 and 18 years old) lives at Mwinkants Village in Babati District, Manyara. He was selected as a one of the mother demo plots lead farmer due to his good record of hard working in the village. He used to grow local sunflower variety and he claimed, the productivity was not good as he could only realize on average 360kg per acre. As a lead farmer, he was 1kg seeds of Hysun 33 hybrid seed to grow on half an acre of his farm as a demo plot for the purpose of village level learning. The germination on the demo plot was very good, estimated at 95%. Currently the sunflower is at weeding stage.
Simon says that “The shootings of the hybrid sunflower are stronger than of the local . I am waiting to see the yield and later, the oil content to verify what experts from Bytrade have been telling me. If the production will be good compared to local variety, I will prepare bigger land in the next season for planting this variety and advice others to do the ”.