During our experimentation in Northern Kenya from 1994 to 1996, we found the runoff irrigation system to be highly successful for securing crop yields. We therefore expanded our activities to test the production of commercial fruit trees, such as orange, papaya, citrus, mango, and guava. Especially guava and papaya performed surprisingly well under the prevailing hot and dry climate.
The experiments were stimulated by the fact that previous efforts to implement runoff irrigation systems in Northern Kenya and in other tropical drylands have often failed due to lack of adoption. The motivation for testing runoff irrigation with fruit trees arises from the fact that the monetary revenue of fruits is much larger than that of subsistence crops such as sorghum or beans.