The European and Mediterranean Vetiver Network ( EMVN) was re-launched by Mike Pease and is now based at Lagos, Portugal. In the past two years Mike has done a tremendous job in promoting the application of VGT in Iberia and other countries in the Mediterranean region, including some middle East and north African countries. In March 1998 Mike imported a large consignment of vetiver from Zimbabwe for EMVN trials, NGOs and private growers in Portugal and Spain.

On the occasion of my pre-planned trip to Europe this September, Mike invited me to visit EMVN to:

To review the EMVN program and to assist Mike with the promotion of VGT in Iberia.

To evaluate a trial conducted by Tecnagrind S.L. for the EU, under the coordination of the previous EMVN Coordinator, Marco Troglia and technical input from Dr. P.K. Yoon and Dr Diego Frutos. The trial site was on an steep batter of a water reservoir near Lorca in the Murcia province of southern Spain.

One presentation and one seminar were given in Lagos and Tavira respectively. A paper entitled

“ VGT a Tool against Environmental Degradation and Desertification in Iberia’ was prepared for these presentations ( attached).

Under the format of a slide show, the unique characteristics of the vetiver plant and its various applications around the world were presented to a group of about 40-50 people. The audience represented a good cross section of the local community who are concerned about the soil erosion problem and the degradation of the local environment, they included environmentalists, local authority and government department representatives, NGO, nurseries and the local press. Several potential applications which could be used locally, were pointed out but the most obvious and urgent is the need to control erosion on road and highway batters and for erosion and sediment control and water conservation in both agriculture and forestry.

Usual expressions of doubt were expressed by environmentalist on the long term benefit of VGT and the potential damage to the local environment by an exotic species with potentially unseen negative effects on the environment like the Eucalyptus. This species has invaded native forests and is believed to prevent the natural re-colonisation of native vegetation. It was pointed it out that this is highly unlikely as vetiver is sterile, non invasive, and it has not become a weed anywhere in the world after more than 100 years of use. Furthermore vetiver is native to the wetlands of the tropics, its spread in the temperate Mediterranean climate is probably impossible. Vetiver is a pioneer plant it stops the erosion first building up the sediment bench, and providing an improved seedbed for native species to establish naturally. It is very difficult for these native plants to re-colonise the highly unstable and erodible land unaided.

Following the presentation the audience was invited to visit the vetiver nursery to inspect the progress and growth of vetiver plants since March and also for a demonstration on how to make horse tea by Mike and for me to demonstrate and discuss the methods, benefit and limitations of the three methods of preparation planting materials for field establishment, namely bare root in sand bed, tubing (planting in small pots) and strips.

Due to shortage of planting materials, several people including a nursery were interested in growing and propagating vetiver for commercial supply.

This seminar was aimed at professionals from government departments and University, a group of local nursery people also attended. More technical information was presented here than at the general presentation at Lagos. The audience was most interested in the tolerance levels of vetiver toward adverse soil conditions and heavy metals, the application of VGT in the rehabilitation of contaminated lands resulted from industrial activities and mining.

Following the presentation the audience visited the vetiver nursery plot behind the Department office block for further discussion on the management of the plot regarding clipping, fertilisation and weeding.

At the discussion on site, a representative from a NGO, Francisco Graca suggested a demonstration trial is needed to show the local authority the effectiveness of VGT in erosion and sediment control. I suggested that a batter stabilisation plot along the highway leading to Tavira was a good demonstration site, he agreed and promised to take this up with Mike.

The Lagos is a popular beach resort in southern Portugal, the beach is located below a badly eroded cliff face. If erosion continued the foundation of several hotels and buildings will be undermined. Mike hopes to establish an erosion control demonstration site on the area behind the cliff face to stabilise the gullies and slow down the advancement of the cliff head.

Antonio’s estate is located north east of Lisbon at latitude of 39^o14” North. He imported vetiver from Tony Tantum about 2 years ago and planted in a nursery plot of about 2 000 m² where irrigation has been carried out in the last 2 summers.

Growth of nursery plants was excellent with the best growth up to 1.8 m high. Antonio said last year growth was much better than this year. This was most likely due to lack of fertilisers and water. It was noted that plants were a little stunted, leaves were narrow and purplish in colour. But this poor growth was mostly due to the lack of water as the best growth was found near leaking irrigation pipes. This site clearly showed that with adequate supply of nutrients and water during establishment phase vetiver can thrive at this latitude and climatic conditions.

Last autumn Antonio used some of this stock to stabilise a creek bank on the estate. Although the spacing was too wide ( 30 cm) to be effective, vetiver plants established well even with no fertiliser application. In addition almost all the plant survived last winter and growing well without irrigation this summer. This is most impressive considering the harsh environment it was exposed to.

Results to date indicate that vetiver will thrive and can be used for land stabilisation on the estate. Layout plan of various applications ( eg dam spillway, dam wall, creek bank and road work etc) were discussed with Antonio and Mike demonstrated to him various methods of preparing slips for field planting.

The Portuguese Institute of Ecology (INPECO) has it Head Office in Monchique and is very active in the area. INPECO, headed by President Gordon Sillence and General Secretary Thomas Gerling, aims to promote sustainable development in Portugal in the fields of environment, tourism, health, technology and sport. INPECO was one of the NGO that imported vetiver planting materials through EMVN in March. INPECO intended to use VGT as a n integral part of their program in Monchique.

INPECO nursery was inspected and it was recommended that for faster growth non shaded area should be used in the future. Applications of VGT for the stabilisation of forestry tracts, degraded forestry land, dam wall, repairing the ancient terrace network and controlling the contamination caused by piggery effluent were discussed.

Establish highway batter demonstration trial near Tavira

Establish demonstration site on top of the cliff at Lagos beach.

Simple demonstration trial to show VGT in trapping sediment on the edge of table drain on the newly built road to Monchique.

A trial conducted by the previous EMVN Coordinator, Marco Troglia, Dr. P.K. Yoon and Dr. Diego Frutos at Lorca in the Murcia province of southern Spain in 1994 to assess the suitability of VGT as a bio engineering method in the Mediterranean region. The results of this trial up to September 1995 was reported in a paper “ The introduction, early results and potential uses of VGHR in Mediterranean regions” at the First Vetiver International Conference in Chiang Rai in 1996. No evaluation on the results and effectiveness of VGT at this site have been carried out since.

Dr. Diego Frutos, a horticultural specialist , who was seconded from the Agriculture and Irrigation Department to help the original team. With his own time Diego has monitored its progress since 1995 and Mike Pease visited the site last year.

According to Diego, after a year or so growth in some rows or parts of the rows, was much slower than the rest and some plants even started dying back. At the time of this visit ( late September ), at the end of the hot and dry summer, most spring and early summer growth has dried up and up to 5-10% of the plants were dead. Closer observation found that most of these plants died up to 2 years ago. But most have survived and flourished for 4 years without any maintenance and about 50% of the plants produced 1m growth or higher last season ( March to July ). Some plants are on the verge of flowering.

This is remarkable considering they did not receive any follow up maintenance since18 months after establishment and have survived and flourished for 3 years under these extremely harsh environment.

Diego attributed the death of plant to the variability in the quality of the fill materials which is extremely poor in nutrients. This is basically true, but I think the real cause of death was due to the lack of soil moisture, resulted from no follow up maintenance, namely fertiliser application. Since the soil (?) was extremely poor, the fill slope was uneven and rocky so we need a very fast early growth for the roots to reach down to the deep soil moisture conserved from winter rain. Therefore, in this case I think we need follow up fertilisers for a few years. Those plants that survive are doing really well as shown in the attached photos.

Diego also attributed the death to the variation in genetic materials and he intended to select and build up the supply of the more hardy plants that survived for future use in the region. I have reservation about this view as I am not sure what plant source was used on this site. The Malaysian strain that Yoon used here was not screened by Bob Adams so I think it is worth looking at.

Most interestingly some local volunteer species have established between the vetiver rows. These volunteers have greatly impressed Dr. Tiscar Espigares, a plant ecologist from the University of Alcala near Madrid. The control plots remained bare of vegetation, and on an area above the trial site, a similar batter planted with ice plants was also almost bare despite irrigation has been supplied every summer in the last few years.

The early results have convinced Diego as he continued to monitor the progress of this trial in the last 3 years. Diego, in his own time, have also been trying to convince the highway people to use VGT. He succeeded in convincing a contactor last year to try out on a small section of the highway near Murcia, but the plan fell through in the last minutes, as although the contractor agreed to provide the planting cost, but he could not afford the irrigation. With the present outcomes Diego was more convinced than ever that VGT has great potential in steep lopes stabilisation in the dry and hot climate of southern Spain, where nothing else grow much even under irrigation in the summer.

The excellent results obtained in Lorca was in sharp contrast to the spectacular failure of an EU funded project near Murcia. This project at the cost of 148 millions Pesitas ( approximately US$ 1.1 million), using Atriplex alimus to stabilise some very steep batters along a highway leading to Murcia. Although supported with extensive drip irrigation in the last year, Atriplex failed completely to established at some sections and only a very small number just survived in others and the erosion was most obvious at this site.

VGT was also planted by Tecnagrind in an almond orchard in Lorca to evaluate its effectiveness in soil and water conservation. At the time of the visit most of the vetiver plants were dead, those survived had very poor growth. The cause of death again could be attributed mainly to the lack of soil moisture resulted from the lack of fertiliser application on this very poor soil. Because of its poor growth most of the surviving plants were accidentally ploughed out so there were very few plants left. Those survived reached the height of 0.8m.

Diego did not think the application of VGT in orchards is a sustainable proposition as the economic return from the almond orchard or any other tree crops are extremely low. However he was interested in the use of VGT for flood erosion control on the flood plain to protect higher value crops from flash flood damage during winter.

Diego is now convinced that the VGT has an important role in land stabilisation in the Murcia region, particularly in highway batter stabilisation. He now has a nursery plot of 500m² which can supply enough planting materials for several small projects. As he is very keen to promote VGT in southern Spain, I would recommend that:

EMVN applies for funding support from the EU for a trial to use VGT on the sites where the previous Atriplex plantings have failed. This project will be coordinated by EMVN with the full input and cooperation from Mike, Diego, Tiscar and myself. Details for this project will be worked out later. I think we would have a very good chance here as this will be a relatively low cost project to follow an earlier and very successful EU funded trial and the dismal failure of their most recent one with Atriplex.

Flood erosion control on the flood plain is another project worth considering as Diego is also keen on this application. I have sent him a CD ROM of my flood erosion control work here to give him a better picture of how VGT works in this application.

Plant samples be sent to Bob Adams for DNA typing to identify possible genetic variation amongst the vetiver plants at the Lorca site.

 OVERALL IMPRESSION

Mike and Jyll’s effort over the last 2 years has certainly paid off handsomely as shown during my visit and the press coverage later. EMVN from now on will be well accepted in the region, promoting a new, simple but effective technology that the region needs.

After seeing the performance of vetiver at Santarem ( 39⁰14” N) and Lorca (300mm of rain in winter and 45⁰C in summer) I am convinced that VGT can be applied successfully in the Iberia peninsula and other countries in the Mediterranean region including its potential in slowing down/reclaiming the spread of desert in the region.

ACKNOWLEDGENT

I wish to thank Mike and Jyll Pease, Tiscar Espigares and her husband Jesus, Diego Frutos, Antonio de Mello and his wife Carmo for their time and hospitality which make this wonderful trip so memorable. But above all, without Mike’s invitation and Dick Grimshaw’s support, this visit was not possible. Julie and I wish to thank you all for the opportunity.