Category: forage

Become a Farmer-Researcher: Six Vetiver System Models to Transform Your Farm

An Invitation to Farmers and Other Vetiver Users Choose Your Path, Document Your Journey, Share Your Knowledge What if the greatest agricultural research wasn’t happening in laboratories, but on your farm? What if farmers like you—working the land, observing the…

NEWSLETTER (NL2026-04) The 9-Degree Solution: What Vietnamese Farmers Discovered (And Science Had Already Proven}

Welcome to an extraordinary month in the Vetiver world. From Vietnamese farmers making remarkable discoveries to Brazilian associations taking flight, from Ethiopian insights finally being understood to engineering breakthroughs that challenge conventional thinking—this month reveals vetiver’s true power not just…

Newsletter (NL 2025-07) Promoting the Vetiver System, Landscaping, Feedback, Learning from the past

PROMOTING THE VETIVER SYSTEM Getting people to change long used practices, whether they be users or advisor/designers/policy makers, can take many years. You can teach hundreds of people how to use vetiver grass technology, of those hundreds fewer will use...

Newsletter – Vetiver Secrets, Soil Health, Wastewater, Forage (NL 2025-01)

The Secrets of Vetiver. As research is carried out on various attributes and applications of vetiver we are coming to learn how the plant functions and what it can do. A recent Chinese study “Reshaping the microenvironment and bacterial community…

Vetiver Grass Technology – Carbon Farming Management – Research – Global Outreach – Feedback (NL 2024-10)

CARBON FARMING FOR FARMERS – MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES “Soil organic matter is the elixir of life” . … Rattan Lal “A healthy soil should contain 2-4% Soil Organic Matter (SOM) half of which is Soil Organic Carbon.” The Potential of Regenerative…

The Broken Hydrological (Water) Cycle — and Feedback from Vetiver users (NL 2024-08)

The Broken Hydrological (Water) Cycle. Summer is always a rather slow time for exchanging vetiver information –  a time to relax and reflect.  I have been re-reading Charles Massy’s book “Call of the Reed Warbler” (available from e.Books.com). It makes…

The Vetiver System – A Changing Perspective. (NL-2024-05/06)

The Vetiver System – A Changing Perspective When John Greenfield and I introduced vetiver grass hedgerows to Indian Watershed development projects in the 1980’s the objective was to replace poorly designed — high maintenance, high cost conservation structures (graded contour…

Vetiver Farm Design Applications, Mulching and other News. NL-2024-04

Over the years many people have started using vetiver and, in the process, have joined various vetiver social media groups. I realize that many of them find the amount of information available overwhelming, and often not easy to find. This…

Critical Info and Data are in these Newsletters!

Vetiver Network News Letters from 1990-2002 This compilation of newsletters created from the originals, the latter were authored by Jim Smyle, Joan Miller, and Dick Grimshaw, record the research and development of the Vetiver Grass Technology following its introduction by…