This is the first video in a series regarding an ‘Intensive Moringa Cultivation’. This video describes the layout and irrigation for the ‘Intensive Moringa Cultivation’ as well as the environmental conditions at the time of planting Moringa seeds.
Through this series you can follow a small scale ‘Intensive Moringa Cultivation’ that was carried out in Poway California. Germination rates, plant height, stem diameters, leaf yield and environmental conditions will be shared to give you as much information as possible. You will have an up close view into what an ‘Intensive Moringa Cultivation’ looks like and the leaf production you can expect under similar environmental conditions. For us, growing Moringa in Southern California, Moringa growth and therefore leaf yield will be limited by lower than ideal temperatures. This intensive moringa cultivation is being done to gain experience with watering requirements, potential leaf yield, and general knowledge about growing moringa.
Please comment below if you have any comments or questions. If you have ever had experience with an ‘Intensive Moringa Cultivation’ I would love to connect with you so please send me an email.
Transcript:
It’s the middle of March here in Poway, California. While it’s a little cool to be planting Moringa just in the ground outside uncovered, we are going to be planting Moringa seeds today in this raised bed. This raised bed is 16 feet long. It’s 4 feet wide. We are going to be doing an intensive cultivation of Moringa in this bed for leaf production. We’re going to split this bed up into 4 different sections. In the first section, we’re going to be planting seeds on a 4-inch by 4-inch grid, giving us a total of 120 seeds. In the second section, we’re going to be planting on a 5-inch by 5-inch grid, giving us 80 seeds. In the third section, we’re going to plant on a 6-inch by 6-inch grid, giving us about 50 seeds. Then in our final section, we’re going to planting on a 7-inch grid, giving us about 35 seeds. In total, we’re going to have nearly 300 plants in this raised bed.
Not only are we going to be doing 4 different planting densities to see leaf yield but we’re also going to be planting seeds which are dry just from the package. They are control group. Then we’re going to be planting seeds which have been hydro-primed. Hydro-primed is just a fancy word. It’s a technical term, meaning that the seeds have been soaked for a while in water and then dried before planting. In our case, we’ve hydro-primed the seeds by soaking them for about 10 hours and then drying them briefly before planting. If you’d like to know more about hydro-priming, please see my other video on that. I’ll describe some of the latest research that’s been done in that area and show you which technique might work best for you.
As we follow this, I’m going to be recording germination rates for all seeds. We’re going to be looking at the stem heights over time, the stem diameters over time, as well as the leaf yield. This should serve as a test bed just to get an idea of what the climate here in Southern California can support for an intensive cultivation of Moringa. I’m went ahead and put in this down spray irrigation system. Certainly, a drip line could have worked and I will put a drip line in later. That’s the way this header was originally set up. I went ahead and I put plugs where the drip line were going to go. I put in this half-inch line now, hooked up to these 20 sprayers. I thought with such a high-density planting that it would be good to go ahead and to be able to just spray the whole area at least until the little seedlings are 5 or 6 inches taller. Then, I’ll go ahead and I’ll just lay the drip line in.
This first bed is planted 36 holes, had a measuring tape. They’re very accurately precisely planted. I want this to be as high quality of a test as possible. I’m going to go ahead now and do the other 3 spacings and layout the holes.
We’re down to the tight spacing here which is 4-inch by 4-inch, really tight spacing. The intensive platting has been completed on these raised bed. We’re going to be monitoring soil temperatures. I have a probe in the ground. Right now, the soil temperature at about 4:30 in the afternoon is 85 degrees. I will be putting row covers on this each evening at least for the next several weeks to keep the temperatures in the bed higher.
Thanks for watching. Be sure to check out the website, ahealthyleaf.com, for more information about Moringa and the results from this project.
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Thank you for your fine work Mark. My name is Mark as well & I ordered 2 packs of your PKM-1 seeds & have started. I see that PKM-1 is a hybrid seed & would like to confirm that the seeds it produces in pods later will be re-plantable & grow normally? Most hybrids, as you know, do not reproduce a hearty plant but I definitely want to grow more trees from the pd seeds. Will your PKM-1 work well for such ?
Thanks,
Mark
Hi Mark, great question. It turns out that PKM-1 (developed by The Horticultural College & Research Institute, Periyakulam of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University in 1989) is actually not a hybrid but rather the result of 6 generations of pure line selection. There are a lot of websites that may incorrectly market the PKM-1 seed as a hybrid (We did a few years ago). The PKM-2 on the other hand developed by the same group is indeed a hybrid. You should be able to collect mature seeds and have success planting. -Mark