{"id":2038,"date":"2016-04-07T09:37:18","date_gmt":"2016-04-07T09:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kengenfoundation.co.ke\/?p=2038"},"modified":"2016-09-21T15:18:13","modified_gmt":"2016-09-21T12:18:13","slug":"growing-the-wonder-trees-of-the-schools-green-initiative-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kengenfoundation.co.ke\/growing-the-wonder-trees-of-the-schools-green-initiative-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"Growing the Wonder Trees of the Schools Green Initiative Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

The barren and desolate environment of some parts of Kitui replicates itself in some parts of Machakos and Embu counties, the location of KenGen\u2019s 7-Forks power plants.<\/p>\n

Scattered haphazardly in the landscape are simplified brick kilns, some broken down and long abandoned, while others still spouting wisps of smoke\u2026 evidence of illegal and rampant charcoal burning activities in the semi-arid area.<\/p>\n

\"Muveshi<\/a>

Muveshi growing in a school woodlot, Machakos.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

The desperation is evident. Persistent drought, extreme temperatures, and poor soil structures that curtail farming are some of the challenges facing the three counties. Villagers from the surrounding area spend most of their days looking for firewood. This means that they will have to go further in a daily search of this source of fuel while ceaselessly destroying the environment. <\/p>\n

Despite this, there is hope. The KenGen Foundation\u2019s Green Initiative Challenge<\/a> expansion project, in partnership with Better Globe Forestry and Bamburi Cement Ltd is a schools afforestation project aimed at greening over 500 acres of arid and semi arid land. This will take 300,000 tree seedlings, and 113,956 fruit seedlings in over 900 schools within a period of 10 years within the 7-Forks area. The GIC also encourages the setting up and planting of trees in woodlots within the surrounding households.<\/p>\n

The trees of choice carefully selected for the project are Senna siamea <\/em>(Muveshi), <\/em>a fast growing tree that provides almost immediate benefits through coppicing which provides wood fuel for many years; and Melia volkensii <\/em>(Mukau)a highly commercially valuable timber source. Both trees provide green shade all year round, are adaptable to dry climatic conditions and are easy to plant and grow to maturity.<\/p>\n

Growing Muveshi<\/strong>
\nMuveshi is particularly suited to grow in lowland tropics with a monsoon climate. It will only grow when its roots have access to groundwater, and the maximum length of the dry period<\/p>\n

\"Flowers<\/a>

Flowers of Senna siamea.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

should not exceed 4-8 months. It is susceptible to cold and frost and does not do well at altitudes above 1300m. It requires a mean annual temperature of 20-31o<\/sup> Celsius, and a mean annual rainfall of 400-1,500 mm. <\/p>\n

The tree performs best on deep, well-drained fertile soils with pH value of 5.5-7.5, but will grow on degraded lateritic soils provided they are well drained. It is intolerant of saline soils.<\/p>\n

The tree grows fast even in comparatively infertile soils. For the production of fuel wood and charcoal, plantations are generally pollard or regenerated by coppice. If coppiced, 2-3 shoots per stump are left after one year. The species can produce several coppice cycles, with a rotation of 4-7 years for pole production.<\/p>\n

The dense, dark-coloured wood of Muveshi makes good fuel with an energy value of 22,400 kJ\/kg, and the density is 600-800 kg\/m\u00b3. The wood was formerly preferred for locomotive engines. Its charcoal is also of excellent quality.<\/p>\n

Growing Mukau<\/strong><\/p>\n

The tree is drought-resistant and can grow in dry areas with mean average rainfall between 400-1000mm. It prefers red sandy soils but survives in heavier, clayish ones though it cannot stand water logging and will die after a couple of days if its root system is flooded with water. Equally, at planting, it is not advisable to plant it in a pit where water can accumulate, as the seedling will die.<\/p>\n

The germination process requires special attention. The fruits contain two to four seeds that are encased in a hard nut. The nut has to be cracked with care, so that the seeds are not<\/p>\n

\"About<\/a>

About one week old germination of Mukau.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

damaged. Once extracted, the seeds are nipped at the top, and soaked in water to allow germination. <\/p>\n

Economic and efficient watering can be done by drip-irrigation, for instance with a plastic bottle put close to the seedling stem. The bottles are put upside-down, slanted, with their top punctured to allow the dripping, and the bottom partly cut, to allow regular refilling.<\/p>\n

Mukau needs full sunlight for its development. The minimum spacing should be 4 meters, although complete agroforestry practices require a spacing of seven to ten meters. Initial growth is fast and soon the branches of neighbouring trees start competing with each other, and then the growth slows down. At a spacing of 4 meters, this competition sets in after some four to five years.<\/p>\n

In the conditions of 7-Forks, the total process of seedling production, between sowing and obtaining seedlings of plantable size (one foot high) takes about three to three-and-a-half months. To shorten the process, farmers often collect root suckers from existing trees, and plant them in their farms.<\/p>\n

Follow us on Twitter through\u00a0<\/i>@KenGen_Foundatn<\/i><\/a>\u00a0and like our\u00a0<\/i>Facebook page<\/i><\/a>\u00a0for more updates.<\/i><\/p>\n

–Ernest Nyamasyo<\/a>, Communication Officer<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The barren and desolate environment of some parts of Kitui replicates itself in some parts of Machakos and Embu counties, the location of KenGen\u2019s 7-Forks power plants. Scattered haphazardly in the landscape are simplified brick kilns, some broken down and long abandoned, while others still spouting wisps of smoke\u2026 evidence of illegal and rampant charcoal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":2068,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[72,74,73,66,68,67,71,45,46,79,59],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kengenfoundation.co.ke\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2038"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kengenfoundation.co.ke\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kengenfoundation.co.ke\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kengenfoundation.co.ke\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kengenfoundation.co.ke\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2038"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.kengenfoundation.co.ke\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2553,"href":"https:\/\/www.kengenfoundation.co.ke\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2038\/revisions\/2553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kengenfoundation.co.ke\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kengenfoundation.co.ke\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kengenfoundation.co.ke\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kengenfoundation.co.ke\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}