AMELIORATING THE EFFECTS OF HIGH VELOCITY JUNE WINDS AND HIGH TEMPERATURES

June winds are important component affecting farming systems in the Eastern horn of Africa. They are part of the East African Low Level Jet (EALLJ) that maintain their presence in the West Indian Ocean for most part of the year. As the monsoon winds accelerate in speed towards the Eastern Coast of Africa, they gain momentum to penetrate the Coastal ranges into hinterland areas of Eastern Kenya. Being subsiding air masses, the meteorological properties of these winds causes drying of the atmosphere and "chasing away" any rain bearing clouds resulting in cloud free conditions. This causes "abrupt drought" conditions in the areas in which they traverse. Due to increased rates of soil evaporation and transpiration due to the high velocity winds coupled with high ambient temperature, deficit soil moisture conditions sets in causing crops to wilt. To mitigates the increased rates of atmospheric demand, Coir dust mulch was used to reduce evaporation from the soil, while Kaolin transpirant was foliar applied to reduce transpiration by reflecting away excessive heat and light, in the process forestalling midday photosynthetic shutdown, and maintaining dry matter accumulation and yields.