Thursday 17 November 2016

Mucuna bracteata - the best cover crop solution

So I was requested to cover up an reserved bare hill for future development.

Due to rainy season, the hill erosion is so bad as you can see from the photos below:




Totally silted drain, this drain does not serve any function anymore. 
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We can probably turf it with carpet grass (Axonopus compressus), however it is costly! 
Hence, we came up with a solution, that is the legume cover crop (LCC) Mucuna bracteata. 
This LCC is very fast growing once established, and of course cheaper than turfing, most importantly.

Dig up a planting hole and fill it with rock phosphate.

Spacing between planting points.

A week after planting, TADAA! 

This LCC is often used in oil palm plantation to cover up the soil during replanting of oil palm trees. To reduce the weed growth and also to retain moisture. 

A well grown Mucuna bracteata should look something like this...

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Last but not least! 

A paranoma photo I took at the hill top

Cheers! 


[Update (23/11/2016)]


My plants are growing fast! Look at the size of the leaves!


New seeds arrived. Free a packet of rhizobium which its purpose is to stimulate germination.

[Update 24/11/2016]



Successfully germinated the seeds, now it's time to plant it in polybag! 


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