Establishing Native Vegetation for Soil Stabilization in Semi-Arid Areas in South Africa, Ethiopia and Madagascar.

An excellent presentation by Roley Noffke of Hydromulch - Africa's leading land restoration company. 

"As a pioneer species, vetiver grass, enables native species to establish on degraded sites where under normal circumstances it is impossible for the latter to develop. Vetiver grass provides habitat, shelter and forage to fauna".  

This presentation is about some high quality land restoration work in Africa, particularly it shows: (1) that vetiver is effective in extreme conditions and (2) for the native plant folks, vetiver acts as a great pioneer plant for native plants (growing where nothing else will) and eventually will all but disappear when the native plants are fully established (often within 5 years).  TVNI has been writing about this for years, but has been often met with skepticism from the purists. We all love native plants, but often they need a lot of help to get started. Vetiver is a great nurse!!

While I am on the topic those readers who are in drought stricken parts of the world including the US, might want to give serious thought to using vetiver to slow down rainfall runoff when it occurs (see my recent blog) and to help recharge fast receding groundwater.
Dick Grimshaw