Vetiver antifungal garden mulch

From John Greenfield: "Greenfield" <[email protected]>

A good idea just came to my jaded mind for a way developing countries can make good money out of vetiver. I was talking to an organic gardening friend of mine and she gathered up a lot of the leaves cut from our Kerikeri hedge, didn't want to waste them so them home and put them round the broad beans she crops each year - low and behold, she produced the best beans she has ever grown. So impressed she mulched her large bed of Irises which yield beautiful flowers but the fungal diseases kill them - with the mulch, no problems! This stuff is like Gold! she cried.

As vetiver will grow on ratshit soil and still yield heavily and virtually no cost, you could cut it transport it to a stationary baler , bale it and sell it to the garden centers, - organic gardeners would love it.

Charge $20/bale - a 33kg bale would cover the average size garden. One hectare of vetiver grass would yield 16t/cut twice a year that is 32 tons/yr @ 30 bales/ton=$19,200 gross/ha. The baled vetiver is not perishable, can be stacked like hay even stacked in to containers on a wharf waiting for a ship - it can be fumigated without any problems and shipped to the States for sale.

Once people see how valuable it is as an organic pesticide/fungicide/virocide they would corner the market, and the price/bale would go up. Think about it.

Regards, John