On farm management of Vetiver grass hedgerows

With the increasing potential of multipurpose uses of vetiver grass hedgerow (VGH) by farmers it is important to give some thought as to how the hedges are managed - basically planting design, maintenance and harvesting. The primary purpose of VGH is for soil and water conservation, secondary uses include pest control, forage, thatch, handicrafts, waste water clean up, biomass and more.

The basic (primary) design.  Hedges should be aligned on an “average” contour as shown in this figure. 

Planting distance within the line should be 15 cm.  In image below left hand row demonstrates optimum hedge density at two years at 15 cm between plants

The linear distance between VGH will vary with slope, the rule thumb spacing for erosion control is at 2 meter Vertical Interval (VI).  Some examples: 1% slope 104 meters apart; 5% slope 38 meters; 10% 22 meters; 20% 10 meters, 25% 8 meters, and  45% 5 meters.  Often farmers on steeper slopes will start with hedgerows further apart, and then later as experience builds up they add more hedgerows between existing ones if needed. whereas on flatter slopes the farmer may have more hedges than actually needed as when used for marker lines (ridges)

On very small fields/farms/gardens planting a vetiver hedge all around the boundary of the area will provide adequate protection as well as demarcating the field boundary.

VGH management. Hedgerows can grow as high as 2 meters or more, but are often cut for various purposes during the year.  It is recommended that the minimum cutting height is 20 - 30 cm.  A 20 - 30  cm high hedge will be dense, stiff and will withstand rainfall runoff. This image can be considered a “perfect” hedge

Vetiver System - Vetiver Grass Technology Applications

Vetiver Grass is an absolute unique plant for many reasons, but its most impressive characteristics are that it can be grown successfully in virtually every country with a warm to hot climate, and for a large range of different applications covering a number of critical sectors relating to the environment.  Here is a list of these applications with links to some short photo presentations which helps put this plant into perspective.  Note "high resolution images are also available - click on button near bottom of table.

THE VETIVER_ SYSTEM -- OVERVIEW
VETIVER_ SYSTEM AND CLIMATE CHANGE
ABOUT VETIVER - THE PLANT	PROPAGATION & PLANTING
AGRICULTURAL USES	FORAGE AND BIOMASS
ON FARM SOIL & WATER CONSERVATION	LANDSCAPING
LAND REHABILITATION	MINE REHABILITATION
MINE REHABILITATION LARGE SCALE APPLICATIONS	COASTLINE STABILIZATION
BRIDGE PROTECTION	HIGHWAY STABILIZATION
PUBLIC UTILITY STABILIZATION	STEEP SLOPE STABILIZATION
RURAL ROAD STABILIZATION	RAILROAD STABILIZATION
UPLAND FLOOD CONTROL	LOWLAND DIKES & LEVEE STABILIZATION
RIVER BANK STABILIZATION	DAM STABILIZATION
LANDFILL TREATMENT	EFFLUENT DISPOSAL
HANDICRAFTS	OTHER USES
HIGH RESOLUTION FILES OF ABOVE APPLICATIONS
TVNI - WEBSITE - NEWS - MENU - DOCUMENTS
FACEBOOK

Please share with others who might be interested.  Thank you

Vetiver. -- Biomass production versus vetiver oil production. Some observations from Gueric Boucard

Recently Gueric Boucard (Dominican Republic) who has been in the vetiver oil business for years, and is now growing vetiver as a profitable bio fuel,  sent the following to a vetiver grower in Europe.  I though I would share it with you as it is rather thought provoking.

"If I could find a place to sell Vetiver slips at about 2 Euro a slip I would make millions overnight...., and Haiti would become a country of very rich peasants.

You can estimate that one hectare could yield over a million single slips/ annum:

Let's do the math, just for fun.

For mechanized Vetiver farming, on only a hundred hectares in the Dominican Republic, we plant (on 1 hectare 100m x 100m) 55 rows 100 meters long (rows are 1.80m apart to accommodate large digger tractor), which equals 5,555 linear meters of six clumps per meter (a tight staggered double row), which is a total 33,330 vetiver clumps per hectare, which after one year with irrigation will yield an estimated 50 seedlings (slips) per clump, that is: 1,666,500 SLIPS @ 2 Euro each = 3,333,000 Euros of slips per hectare. Wow!

That's a lot more money than corn and wheat, sugarcane or bananas...., or even cocaine per hectare (just guessing on the cocaine!).

"The Father of Vetiver", John Greenfield died at his home in New Zealand on February 25 2017. John often reminded us that as agriculturists we had only 30 to 40 seasons to attempt to make significant change during our professional careers. He certainly succeeded in doing so, and today tens of thousands of people in the tropical world have benefited from his insights and actions on soil and moisture conservation and the application of the Vetiver System. He was a very practical hands on agronomist and conservationist whose work was always well based on science. He understood what he saw, and was able to create practical common sense solutions from those observations. We know him affectionately as "The Father of Vetiver" - and he is well known to many people through the simple hand book "Vetiver Grass - A Hedge Against Erosion" - a handbook that had to fit in the shirt pocket of a farmer! and one that has been translated into countless languages. 
I personally knew John since 1985 when he came to work with me in India. He became a good friend and colleague. We had many great times together in India, and after, from a distance promoting the Vetiver System around the globe. His was not a wasted life, but one of action, one that will continue to impact for a very, very, long time into the future on many thousands users of the Vetiver System in many different ways. John was always looking to help the world's small rainfed farmers. The best tribute to him would be for those people working with and advising this group of farmers, to make greater efforts to introduce the Vetiver System and the very unique plant that it is based on. Those who work with small farmers might like to read this: ALLEVIATING POVERTY IN THE THIRD WORLD -- THIS IS ALL IT TAKES!
Emerging from John's "Vetiver Grass Technology" based soil and water conservation focused work has been, in recent years, a series of bioengineering and phytoremediation applications that could have a profound impact on our environment at this time of climate change. 
Our thoughts are with Sandra (his long time partner) and his children.


Dick Grimshaw. February 25 2017

The Vetiver System supports Community Resilience at a time of uncertainty - Part I - The Farm

Figure 1:Hassan Ali and family from Ethiopia - a leading user of the
Vetiver System and who  is as a result much more resilient to uncertainty

I propose to write about how the Vetiver System can help build up community resilience in these uncertain times when many communities can expect little support from government or others to deal with increasing problems created by climate change, continuing poverty, and very limited financial resources. The review will be carried out over a number of post. Most rural people in the tropics and semi arid areas are poor, and even when out of poverty most are unable to manage the environmental crises that currently, and in the future, will confront them. Most communities worry about being able to make a decent living from their small farms or businesses, they want to educate their children at higher levels, they worry about the quality and availability of their water supply, they worry about potential disasters that may isolate them from neighboring communities and services, and they see continuing and unabated health challenges often caused by environmental mismanagement. These concerns are magnified because most communities lack access to low cost technologies that might help them overcome some of their problems.

The Vetiver System (VS) is one of a number of technologies that can help them. VS is low cost, relatively simple to understand, safe, and has over the past 30 years been well proven. The Vetiver Grass Technology, (VGT) used for decades by farmers in south India as a tool for soil conservation, was reintroduced and "institutionalized" by John Greenfield of New Zealand whilst he was working for the World Bank in India in the 1980s. At that time the objective was to establish VGT as a more appropriate erosion control technology than the traditional engineered contour bunds. Later VGT formed the basis of a number of other applications that collectively are known as the Vetiver System (VS), these will be reviewed in future blogs. The grass when planted as a hedgerow across the slope significantly reduces soil loss and rainfall runoff. As a result soil fertility is enhanced (increased organic matter, reduced nutrient loss, and nutrient enhancement through increased soil micro-organism activity), crop water availability is improved (enhanced permeability and rate of infiltration), ground water is better recharged is less polluted, and; and farmers can use other crop improvement technologies with less fear of "man" induced drought, flood damage, etc. that can lead to economic disaster. Additionally there are many bi-products that further enhance farm income including vetiver grass use as forage, mulch, thatch, fuel, medicine, crop protection (integrated pest management), and material for handicrafts. All these uses are quantified in the many research and "feed back" papers and documents found at the TVNI website - www.vetiver.org.

 One of the most successful and widespread on farm application of vetiver has been in the Mettu-Gore region of western Ethiopia, where it was introduced in the 1990's by the Austrian NGO, Menschen fur Menschen, with some financial support from TVNI. Today tens of thousands of small farmers are using vetiver in that region. Here are some examples from Ethiopia showing how VGT has been successfully used on farms at any scale.

Figure 2: Google Earth image (1/2014) of Hassan Ali's farm near Gore 

- western Ethiopia. 8°11'11.23"N, 35°21'2.58"E

 Hassan Ali and family A small farmer in Gore District, Hassan Ali, started using vetiver about 20 years ago and soil fertility and "rainfall security" he was able year after year to increase his income to enable him to educate his children through university. He also was a key person in the area to teaching other famers about the benefits of VGT that has resulted in the spread of the technology. "Seeing is Believing"- Figure 2 is  a 2014 Google Earth image of his farm with his vetiver hedgerows marked with a "V" in red, and some photos that I took in 2009 to match some of the locations on the GE image - marked as yellow numbers.

VETIVER AND COLD TOLERANCE.

Matthew Huffine's Vetiver in Winter
Mohave Desert, California

Paul Truong, TVNI's Technical Director has updated information relating to the tolerance of vetiver to cold. His slide presentation - COLD TOLERANCE OF VETIVER - should be of interest to users who live in areas of hot summers and cold winters - especially in desert areas where winter night time temperatures are very low, but have high winter day time temperatures that reduce the possibility of freezing and killing the vetiver crown- we have to thank Matthew Huffine who lives in the high desert (Mohave) of California for this information. The presentation shows that Vetiver can survive very cold winter, but dies when the crown is frozen in the ground. In very cold, frosted or under snow cover the outside plants of the thick sward protect the interior part, which remains green and actively treating effluent. Under extremely cold and dry conditions, its shoots turn brown but new growth resumes from underground buds.

Dick Grimshaw

VETIVER SYSTEM AND DROUGHT - How Vetiver saved a farmers herd of cattle in Venezuela

Climate change is resulting in severe droughts in some parts of the world.  The Vetiver System if applied and managed as a forage crop could provide communities and farmers greater resilience and protection.  Analysis of vetiver leaf shows that at a young stage its nutritional value is as good as the popular tropical grasses such as Rhodes, Napier, Star, Kikuyu and others. The key question is how to manage vetiver in order to  produce a quality forage.  Small farmers in Gundalpet, south India, know - they cut their vetiver hedges every three weeks - great forage! We need to apply an appropriate management approach, probably following controlled strip grazing or rotational grazing practices, for those farmers who could use vetiver as a forage crop at large scale. Here follows an interesting and related story from Raphael Luque of Venezuela titled "Vetiver Saved My Herd"

THE MANAGEMENT OF VETIVER HEDGES. (note by John Greenfield)

Vetiver hedges in cooler climates can be challenged by fast growing local species of grass and broad leaved climbers, to the extent that the hedge succumbs to the invading weed’s shade and pressure.  As Vetiver - Chrysopogon spp is sensitive to weedicides especially Glyphosate, getting rid of grass weeds in the hedge, especially Kikuyu grass (Pennisetum clandestinum) can be very labour intensive.  However, if Kikuyu grass is not controlled, it can rapidly smother the vetiver and destroy the hedge. Kikuyu rhizomes don’t invade the root area of vetiver grass, but the their stolons can completely infest a vetiver hedge and ultimately all its aerial parts. Broad leaved weeds in the hedge, can be easily controlled with 2,4-D which vetiver is resistant to.

Vetiver Grass as a Forage

Texas - after burning Feb 4 2014

The same  - May 27 2014

Probably for millenia the Falani cattle owners of Niger have burned the vetiver grass (Chrysopogon nigritana - common to Africa) that grows naturally on the Niger River flood plains to feed their cattle on the new growth.  Every now and then we read about vetiver being fed to livestock with success, and research results show that when managed correctly vetiver is a nutritive and palatable forage.  The latest feedback from Warren Sullivan, who has been growing vetiver on his land adjoining Trinity Bay, Texas, further underscores the potential of vetiver as a forage crop.

Currently vetiver is normally used for forage as a bi-product from environmental applications. Climate change could make vetiver an interesting forage crop due to its wide range of adaptability, drought tolerance and very high biomass yields (70 tons/ha).  The land where Warren has grown the vetiver (shown in these photos) has a high water table which may well account for some of the extraordinary growth.  Gueric Boucard in the Dominican Republic grows vetiver on saline soils and achieves similar production levels.  In many parts of the world, particularly in northern India and Pakistan there are thousands of hectares of saline soils that are waterlogged and have low productivity (In the Indian State of Haryana there are over 500,000 ha).  Vetiver should grow well on such soils.  It is time that national and regional research stations start looking at the potential of forage vetiver. Data needs to be collected on optimal feeding and harvesting times, management (cut and carry, strip grazing, tethered grazing) nutritional and palatability values, forage yields, and costs of establishment and maintenance.  Different vetiver cultivars need to be tested and analyzed - we know for example that in south India farmers have identified cultivars that are good for forage.

I suggest that readers who would like to use vetiver for forage get in touch with their local research agronomists and persuade them to take some action.
Dick Grimshaw