Pre-extension demonstration of Moringa olifera pollarding technology at Derashe District, Gardula Zone of South Ethiopia

Abstract

Native to northern India, Moringa oleifera is grown all over the world. Little is known about the plant’s management and pollarding techniques in Ethiopia. The main objective of this study was to improve the moringa pollarding technology’s adoption and diffusion, collect farmer feedback, and investigate cost-benefit analysis conducted at 20 farmer fields in 2022-2024. 12 month-old, hardened tree seedlings were planted in a 10x20 m plot with 2x2 m spacing and a 50 cm cutting after a year of planting. Spacing of 2 m x 2 m and cutting on 50 cm after one year of planting the plantation was pollarded at 0.5 m above the ground to promote multiple branch regeneration prior harvest, and then 60 days duration allowed for hardening-off the shock of pollard as a new technology and 1.75 m farmers practice (standard check) used for this demonstration.Twenty-six months after planting, data on the fresh weight of leaf biomass per tree were collected and converted to hectare. The data collected from 200 m2 demonstration plots of five selected trees was evaluated using matrix rankings and simple descriptive statistics. Farmers assessed the demonstration plots three times: at the seedling, six-month, and harvesting periods. Pollarding at 0.5 m and farmers’ practice (1.75 m) produced an average of 16.3 tons per hectare and 10.3 tons per hectare, respectively, in farmers’ fields. When it comes to the yield of new leaf biomass, pollarding at 0.5 m performs better than farmer techniques. Net benefits from pollarding at a 0.5 m farmer practice were 179,000 ETB and 107,600 ETB, respectively. Finally, the demonstration sites hosted a farmer’s field day. Based on a number of criteria, including ease of harvesting, the number of branches per tree, fresh leaf biomass, and protection from steam breaks while harvesting, farmers ranked the 0.5 m pollarding practices first. Finally, it is better to scale up pollarding at a larger scale by 0.5 m in order to boost the adoption and distribution of the moringa pollarding strategy in the study area and similar agro-ecology.