Growing Moringa

Moringa is an ideal plant to grow indoors or in your own backyard.  In fact, in the Philippines that is exactly what they do. You can pick its leaves and make it part of a delicious fresh salad, use it in one our many moringa recipes, (It goes especially well with chicken). Or you can dry the leaves to make a delicious green tea. You can also make tea with the leaf powder in a traditional coffee maker.  If you have enough leaf, you can dry it and make it into moringa powder, like we do, and use it ‘s concentrated nutrition to balance your diet for increased energy and sense of well being. The possibilities are endless.

For those of you that live in the United States, particularly the southern and western states, you are in luck and can grow Moringa outside.  Moringa doesn’t like the cold and loses it leaves in the winter. For those of you that have a true winter, where it freezes and snows, we recommend that you plant Moringa in pots, keeping them outside in the spring and summer and bring them inside when it gets cold. A greenhouse is ideal in most areas. The plant will die if it freezes completely but it can withstand a mild frost nonetheless. Moringa loses its leaves when the average temperature drops below 70 degrees.

The 12 Species of Moringa are among the heartiest in the Fauna kingdom.  The most common species is Moringa Oleifera. Most research done in the areas of nutrition, water purification. live stock feed, vegetable dyes, herbal medicine and oil production are based on the Oleifera species. It is also the most plentiful.  So, when we refer to Moringa we are referring to Moringa Oleifera.

Moringa grows in a variety of climates and substandard soils and it is as fast growing as it is hearty. Normal growth ranges from 3-5 meters per year if left uncropped. It is one of the fastest growing biomasses on the planet when properly nourished.  The seed stock from Moringa Farms has varieties known to grow 7 meters in one year if left unchecked. A fully mature Moringa tree can grow to 35 feet.
Commercial Moringa plantations usually crop the trees so they don’t exceed 3-4 meters. Such a height allows the harvesters reasonable access and the cropping encourages horizontal growth enabling greater leaf production.

Planting methods of Moringa oleifera

Moringa is planted either by direct seeding, transplanting,or using hard stem cuttings. Direct seeding is preferred when plenty of seed is available and labor is limited. Transplanting allows flexibility in field planting but requires extra labor and cost in raising seedlings. Stem cuttings are used when the availability of seed is limited but labor is plentiful.
 
Option 1. Direct seeding
Sow two or three seeds per hill at a depth of 2 cm. Two weeks after germination, thin to the strongest seedling per hill. For leaf, pod and seed production, space plants 3–5 m apart between rows and plants. If using raised beds, form beds with 2-m-wide tops, and space plants 3–5 m apart in a single row.

For production of leaves only, space plants 50 cm within rows spaced 1 m apart. If using raised beds, form beds with 60-cm-wide tops and space plants 1 m apart in a single row. For intensive production of leaves, space plants 10–20 cm within rows 30–50 cm apart. Closer spacing allows harvest of young edible shoots every two to three weeks.

Option 2. Transplanting
Transplanting moringa consists of two steps: seedling production and field planting.

Seedling production. Seedlings can be grown in divided trays, individual pots, plastic bags, or seedbeds. Use of divided trays and individual containers is preferred because there is less damage to seedlings when they are transplanted.

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Multidimensional Moringa

By Susanne Retka Schill
www.biodieselmagazine.com

The search for sustainable biodiesel feedstocks lit a fire under jatropha development late last year as almost weekly announcements were made of new ventures involving the oilseed bearing plant were cropping up worldwide. Much of that was driven by the European understanding of sustainability, which elevates nonfood biodiesel feedstocks such as jatropha to the top of the list. In the United States, a fledgling effort in the biodiesel industry has quietly been investigating another potential feedstock, Moringa oleifera, because it could serve as food and an oil source for biodiesel.

Among those searching for solutions to feed the hungry, Moringa is well known. Beth Doerr is familiar with the tree because of her agricultural endeavors in developing countries. She and her husband work with the Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization Inc., a nonprofit that grows Moringa, among several other food crops, on its Global Farm Research and Learning Center in North Fort Myers, Fla. ECHO trains people to work with small-scale, subsistence farmers, teaching them to make better use of underutilized plants, and developing small-scale, low-cost technologies. “We teach them how to produce food in difficult circumstances,” she says.

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