Naomi Njeri Kibunja:
This Napier grass head smut is extremely serious....if we don’t get a cure soon the dairy industry will collapse; we have no other alternative feed”.

In a Farmer-Research workshop held at National Agricultural Research Laboratories (NAL) Kabete on 16^th October 1997 (Lusweti et al., 1997), other farmer views included:

Samuel Kamau of Kagwe, Lari:
“I started dairying in 1981, planted my Napier grass in 1982 and built my zero-grazing unit in 1983. My Napier grass plot was free from the early flowering disease until 1990. I started noticing the flowers in 1991.  The same year samples were taken from my farm for diagnosis. I use slurry and CAN on my Napier grass and have noticed that CAN really improves the performance of the affected Napier grass. I have tried rotating it with other crops but the early flowering still continues. Uprooting has not curbed the spread of the disease. I hope scientists will come up with a solution or an alternative fodder crop because our dairy production which depends mainly on Napier grass feed is threatened by this disease”.

Jane Baya from Githunguri:
“I planted Napier grass in 1994. I noticed the flowering this year during the drought. I did not think it was a big problem, but I did not like it, so I uprooted the flowering tillers. Later I realized that once flowering tillers appeared on a stool, they spread over the entire stool till all normal looking grass disappears, and the Napier grass production drastically drops so I thought it was a parasitic weed and started uprooting more vigorously. I also noticed that Napier grass grown on poor soils was more severely affected than when grown on fertile soil. The smutted plants seem to grow tall and spread faster than normal plants. There are several varieties in my shamba (farm) and there is one that is only slightly affected by the disease. Even after cutting Napier grass the disease still continues.  I have noticed two variations of the diseased tillers, one has thick firm roots and the other has fibrous roots and is quite easy to pull up. The latter variation seems to become stronger when it grows on a previously cut stool. The disease is not found on Napier grass grown on riverbanks”.

Summary of other Farmers views:
Most farmers in Central Kenya had noticed the early flowering and many thought it was a serious problem. Some thought their Napier grass was flowering because of the age of the plots (some plots are 20 years old), many thought they had a disease problem, while a few thought a parasitic weed caused the problem. Some thought the disease was spread through manure or use of infected planting material and wind and bird droppings were also cited as possible sources of infection. Some farmers used planting material from a plot that was “disease free” and could not understand why their new plots developed the disease. Some had noticed that heavy manure or fertilizer applications improved the situation and some that uprooting the infected tillers helped. In one case, the farmer’s plot appeared completely disease free, although the plot was doing poorly; the farmer suspected that low production was because of his high frequency of harvesting.