Now, if you want to look at an impressive plant, the Moringa should definitely be on your watchlist.
Moringa Oleifera holds the perfect trifecta of providing food, purifying water, and serving us medicinally. And above that, it is a hardy, fast-growing plant that is drought resistant. What more could you possibly need from a single plant?
So I am sure it comes as no surprise that propagating these plants for the nursery as well as the farm is an obvious next step.
Although the moringa tree can be grown very easily from cuttings, at this point I have access to a lot more seeds than what I have available cutting stock. For this reason, I have left a bunch of seedpods on the mother plants and allowed them to tree ripen. Once they were fully expanded, I harvested the pods and extracted all the seeds they had to offer.
For the planting, I filled some 4-liter planting bags with a well-draining potting soil mix and watered the bags well beforehand. The reason I used a bigger-sized bag for the moringa is to ensure that the roots of the tree have ample space to develop. This also removes the need to transplant the seedlings into bigger bags at a later stage. And once the trees are ready, they can be transplanted directly into the earth or be shipped off to retail nurseries to be sold.
My general rule of thumb when it comes to planting seeds is that the width of the seed gives a reasonable indication of the depth at which the seed should be planted. In this case, the moringa seeds were planted about 1.5 cm deep.
Once the seeds were planted in the bags, the bags were watered thoroughly to ensure that there was enough contained moisture for the seeds to start their germination process.
Here is a look at the seedlings after about two weeks;
Isn't it amazing that such a beneficial plant can sprout up so eagerly with minimal care? In as little as 60 days, the leaves of these plants can be harvested for the first time. Harvesting can be done as often as two moth intervals from there on out.
Moringa Uses
Food
Various parts of the moringa plant can be eaten. This includes the roots, flowers, immature seedpods, mature seedpods, and leaves.
Oil Production
The moringa seeds produce Ben oil when pressed, this oil can be used to fuel lanterns, lubricate machinery, is used in the cosmetic and perfume industry as a carrier oil, and more impressively, it is also edible. Once the oil has been pressed out of the seeds, the seed cakes (the compressed seed mass left over after extraction) can be used as animal feed or fertilizer. Read More Here
Water Purification
Moringa seeds are used to purify water, this is often done in rural or underdeveloped areas where the need for clean water outweighs the supply. Read More Here
Medicinal Uses
Moringa is considered a diverse nutritional supplement. But it has also been used in modern and traditional medicines throughout the years. Read More Here
Animal feed
Just about the entire plant can be used as animal feed, this includes the pods, bark, root, leaves, and flowers from the plant as well as the seed cakes after oil extraction.