Saturday, February 26, 2011

How Do You Prune Moringa Trees?

One of the nightmares, of growing Moringa Trees, is that they can rapidly get out of hand. If you intend to eat their leaves, and harvest their pods - you have to be able to get to them!

From seed, a Moringa Tree can easily grow 20 feet tall, within a year - given the proper growing conditions. That makes for a difficult harvest! They just reach for the sunlight, with all of their might, and before you know it - the leaves are out of your reach.

Listen up - it does not have to "go that way"! There is a very simple process involved, for keeping any Moringa tree pruned to a reasonable height, and here it is --- pinch or chop off, every other top growth, and always, always - prune from the top!

Once our little Moringa seedlings are about 12 inches tall, I start pinching off every other top growth of leaves. That encourages Moringa leaves to sprout out, all down the trunk of the seedling. You can do that many times, while the seedlings are still in their pots, and before long - the trunk gets "woody".

If you do not pinch off every other growth, you will have a very tall, spindly Moringa seedling - which grows into a very tall, spindly Moringa tree. That is not conducive to easily getting your hands on the Moringa buds, blossoms, and leaves.

Once the Moringa seedlings are about 18 inches tall, I start chopping the branches in half, lengthwise. We strip off the leaves, and eat them, or dry them, for future use. You must trim them this way, or all you will have, is an extremely tall tree - with its harvest waving up in the air, far above your head.

With Moringa trees of any variety, the more you prune them, the better they grow - and the stronger the tree!

More about this, at this link: How to Prune Moringa Trees

3 comments:

moringa said...

My friend suggest me moringa for natural cure of diabetes. Moringa contain all essential nutrients and it is the nature's most nutritious food.

jerry said...

Hi.. I was wondering if I could start another tree from the branch of another Maringa? If so how should I go about doing it ?

Excalibur said...

Sorry for the very late reply, Jerry! Yes, you can! Get a woody branch that is about 1" wide in diameter, and put it into a pot with soil, or into the ground, and water it. Make sure it has water every day, and soon you will see new leaves coming from the cutting. That is an easy way to propagate Moringa trees!