Raising Moringa 101

As alluded to in an earlier posting, we are planning on cultivating Moringa for leaf production. We had earmarked several acres on the plantation, however thought it would be prudent to first pilot the high density cultivation on a smaller scale. We talked to a couple of experts about germination practices and it was recommended to raise a nursery rather than direct sowing in the field. The latter approach has lower germination rates.

So, we recently started our pilot project of bagging and planting 20,000 seeds in 10,000 poly bags. We have decided on a spacing of 2x2 ft which is considered high density but too wide to be ultra high-density. For the pilot our goal was to prepare about 10,000 saplings and 2 seeds were being sowed in each bag.

Soil and manure are being ground into finer granularity to improve germination rates. 

 Bagging and sowing of seeds in process. Ideally, the seeds should be placed 2-3 inches deep and covered with fine soil.

Part of our first batch of bags.

Seeds were treated with a 2ml/L solution of Humic Acid for 1 hours. Subsequently, they were dried before sowing. Once sowing was done, on day 5 about 50 ml of Humic Acid was administered to induce higher germination.. We had a few long days but with a handful of farm labour we were able to produce over 1500 bags a day. With the conclusion of the first step, the next update will be in a few weeks, once we experience sprouting.