Melia Dubia Consortium - Invitation to Participate

In the last few years, there has been a lot of interest exhibited in the cultivation of Melia Dubia as a biomass / timber crop. The interest has been primarily generated in the southern Indian states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu due to favorable climatic conditions. As always, we are glad to respond to scores of inquires regarding cultivation and commercial prospects of Melia Dubia as an investment venture.

While there are small pockets of cultivation spread across the region, there is no organized effort in promoting the product to the best of our knowledge. We feel it would be helpful for like-minded agri-prenuers to form a group to periodically meet, brainstorm ideas about cultivation, marketing and creating awareness about this crop in the timber industry.

While the earlier cultivators of Melia Dubia broke ground about 3-5 years ago, I think this is the right time to collectively organize thoughts and efforts. Immediate and longer term benefits would be :

• To spread awareness among agri-prenuers of the potential of this timber.
• To educate cultivators of cultivation practices.
• To develop marketing approaches and connect producers with consumers.
• To bypass brokers and engage end-customers as a consortium with supply-side leverage.
• To investigate additional revenue streams for Melia Dubia consumption.

As part of initial pulse-check, I would be interested to see how many folks are interested and have the ability to actively participate. Please take the poll on the right panel to express your current interest. I anticipate initial discussions to be conference calls and later move into physical meetings. Don't forget to drop us a note (info@saverafarms.com) with your contact details so we may reach out to you.

For your reading pleasure, feel free to peruse through these online resources on Melia Dubia :

• http://www.clenergen.com/biomass/melia-dubia
• http://www.hunsply.com/meliadubia.html
• http://www.benwood.eu/cms/dmdocuments/JagdishChander_Meliadubiapotentialspecies.pdf

April 28 Update : The polling tool mentioned above was standard issue from Google (Blogger) but did not work as expected and was removed. However, we have heard from a few participants already, please continue to reach out to us via email and we'll be sure to include you when the initial consortium discussions are organized.

Savera Farms featured on Melia Dubia

Many of our readers subscribe to AgricultureInformation.com, which hosts a popular forum on Indian agriculture industry. The site also publishes a monthly journal which highlights current topics, concerns and provides insights from industry practitioners. Savera Farm was featured during their coverage of Melia Dubia. Hopefully, some of you got to read it and found it helpful. It was a blast responding to the interview. Till date, we have not had a chance to meet a lot of other progressive agri practitioners. If a meeting is organized in Chennai or Madurai, we look forward to meeting our peers and exchanging notes.

Click to open PDF

Click to access magazine (Browse over to Page 22)

Above, I have also included a link to access the magazine. Savera Farms was featured in the January 2013 issue. Additional posts on earlier media coverage can be accessed under the label 'In the News'.

Pilot Melia Dubia plants at 2 years!

Later this week, our 4 test plants at our residence will complete 2 years. Since there are very few plantations in Tamil Nadu that we can treat as a yardstick, the growth of these pilots would be a realistic figure to emulate..

This one started off as the weakest one of the four, but somewhere in the middle took the lead at a girth of 20 inches. Total height of the plant is estimated to be 30 ft.

These trunks have grown to become smooth and round. Here is an example of how the bark grows and becomes smooth in sections where initial branches once grew.

The average girth is about 16-17" which is encouraging for a trunk column of about 17-18 feet.

Now that we have an estimate, our goal would be to see our plantation trees at Savera Farms cross these figures in another 11 months.The environment and soil is not at par as these pilot trees but that only means we will have to be a little more diligent to nurture and patient for the plantation to mature.

Melia Dubia, a year later!

Last August, we had planted 5000+ Melia Dubia saplings. A year later, most of the saplings have been able to grow into young, sturdy trees with an average height of 10-11 ft (although some of them are as high 15-17 ft). External inputs have been minimal. Biannual manuring has been followed and irrigation given once in 5 days (40L at a time). No chemicals or fertilizers have been used except Humic Acid on the weaker ones.

Following are the pictures of our Melia Dubia plot a year later. 

To give you a reference, where we were last year, check out the archives.

Pruning of Melia Dubia

After pruning Mango UHD, our support staff moven on to Melia Dubia trees. The average tree height across various Melia Dubia plots on the plantation is about 6-7 ft, although some of the early bloomers are as high as 12-13 ft. Overall, this growth can be considered above average, which has been primarily due to soil quality and loose soil depth. Despite that, certain Melia Dubia plots exhibit stunted growth which is indicative of relatively inferior soil and nutrient content. To counter stunted growth, we are planning on fertigating such plants with Humic Acid. Second round of manuring (at 7 months) which included 5 Kg of Pressmud/Coir Pith manure, was applied last week.

Timber trees are expected to exhibit good growth with Urea and other chemical fertilizers but the downside is that timber does not compact itself when treated in this manner. Eventually, this is not considered favorable at time of sale.

I have met and talked to several experts in the timber business and all of them have advised me to refrain from using chemicals for a quick growth. Humic Acid is organic and is said to improve soil quality and plant growth. We will start using this in the next few weeks. Will post an update on this in the near future.

We started pruning branches of trees that are above 7-8 feet leaving a little canopy at the top.

Before pruning. Older branches continue to spread in the lower part of the tree.

During pruning, a healthy canopy is retained while several lower branches are removed to promote vertical growth.













One needs to be careful while pruning the branches without bruising the stem. Pruning should be done 1-2 inches away from the stem leaving a little stubble on the trunk. It will automatically drop within 3-4 days, keeping the bark smooth.

In Melia Dubia, pruning (of branches) is done to reduce the energy consumption by the excess leaves, which in turn leads to more available energy for vertical growth. In mango, the pruning (of stem) is performed for horizontal growth by cutting the stem and inducing more horizontal branches. If anyone has performed such pruning at their location, I would be interested in exchanging note on their experiences and long term results. Feel free to drop me a line or post a comment online.

Melia Dubia : At 5 months and many more to go...

Finally, monsoons are over(fortunately it was not as heavy as last year) and the weather is fantastic. On the low end at 17C and at maximum of 29C, it is almost too good to be true for this part of the country. As promised, here is an update on Melia Dubia and the progress thus far.

If you recall, we planted Melia Dubia saplings during first week of August, right at the onset of pre-monsoon showers. In case you missed the blog, you can check it out at

http://techie2aggie.blogspot.com/2011/08/melia-dubia-planting-pictures.html

So far the plants have demonstrated robust growth. At almost 5 months, some of our 'star' trees stand tall at 12 feet, though the average height would be about 5-6 feet. We have witnessed patchy growth in a few areas so it is evident that the growth is dependent on soil quality, moisture (excessive moisture is detrimental) and soil loosening. There were a couple of lines that we added later on but the pits were dug by hand (and not deep enough by a JCB). The plants in these pits have not grown as well as the others - in other words, loosening of soil to about 2 ft is essential for a good growth.

We have not applied any chemical additives so far and plan to minimize their use as much as possible (may be 3-4 times a year). It is said that the compactness of timber is reduced on using fertilizers.

To give you a reference, our worker is about 5 ft 7 inches tall.

Although the overall growth is encouraging and finally one part of the farm is lush and green, we had a little firefighting to do during monsoons ( that's an agri-oxymoron!). Our Melia Dubia plots are close to a couple of large village water tanks. During monsoons, the ground water in these plots rose leading to excessive underground moisture. We had about 40-50 plants that succumbed to root rot.

Root rot is a condition when the roots decay due to excessive moisture. Wilting of leaves is a symptom and fruity smell from the roots confirms the condition. We contained the problem by applying Bavistin (fungicide) 2gm/L on the plants.

Drooping branches and wilting leaves are typical symptoms of root rot. A red ribbon was tied to ascertain if the condition is infectious. Although it is said that root rot can spread to other healthy plants by water and soil, we did not notice it on our farm.

Plant afflicted with severe root rot.

In the first couple of months, we witnessed yellowing of leaves in large numbers. One of our consultants suggested applying Ferrous Sulphate mixed with Neemcake (for iron deficiency). The blunder we made was applying the mixture right at the base of the stem. For all the new agri-preneurs out there, it is almost never a good idea to apply any kind of manure or additive at the based of the plant. You should always maintain a little distance from the stem. General rule of thumb is to apply the mixture at the circumference of the canopy.
Though there were a few casualties that could not be recovered, we were able to salvage most of them. Now, a number of these plants have a black ring around the stem (Neemcake is hot and should not be used in excessive amounts).

A decimated stem due to improper application of neemcake.


This should be the last post for 2011 unless I suddenly feel the urge to post an update on watermelons on new years' eve. Watermelon seeds have shown good sprouting in 7 days.

Thanks to all the readers for following our activities and developments. Wishing everyone a happy and prosperous year ahead!

Melia Dubia: 1 month update

So it has been a month since we planted the saplings. Melia Dubia has been responding very well to the Sivagangai climate. Of the 5285 saplings that we planted (yes! each one was accounted for), 98 plants had to be replaced. Just 2% mortality rate is great given that temperatures can soar upto 40 celsius over here. Irrigation is given every morning for about 1 hour (dripper outflow is 8 litres per hour). My next update will probably be end of the year, when they have gained some height and thickness as well. Till then, stay tuned for updates in Mango and some short term crops!

Melia Dubia post plantation videos

You can access the videos online at www.youtube.com/saverafarms -

Day 1

Day 2

Day 4

Melia Dubia planting in process

Melia Dubia planting Pictures

First week of August was a hectic week at Savera Farms. With an army of 20+ support staff, we were able to plant 5000+ saplings. Fortunately, climate and EB supply were just right and we did not face any hiccups in this activity. This was a big milestone for all of us here and I'd like to thank all the followers for all the encouragement and many other folks for the support, guidance and advice.

 Pits were dug a couple of weeks before planting. They were filled with 1 Kg of Vermicompost and 1 Kg of FYM. The day before planting, drip was started to make the pits moist to expedite the planting process.

Waiting to be planted!

Happy faces!
We had 8 teams working on 8 rows simultaneously.

Ganesan, an individual contributor, is putting the stake next to the sapling for additional support. The next day, we tied ropes to keep the saplings erect.

Mission completed..

Pre Planting Video

We plan on planting Melia Dubia saplings tomorrow - exactly after 7 months since we started land improvement. It is a big day for all of us here at Savera Farms. Following is a video prior to planting. Next time, I shoot a video, you should see the saplings on the ground!

Pre planting video..

Melia Dubia - Proving the concept!

Last October, we went to Coimbatore Agri Fair and picked up four Melia Dubia saplings. Before planting it in big volume, we wanted to do a trial in our own garden.

The trials were done in worst case scenario. We watered them once in two days and gave no additional nutrients or fertilizers. The only source of Urea that was supplied was by my boxer, Buddy; who seemed to have  developed an affinity for the tree second from right. Overall, we were pleased with the growth, given that minimal inputs were given.

In approx. 9 months, trees have towered up to 15-16 ft.

This was taken at chest level height. I could just about hold all the way around.