In January, we practiced Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) on three Apple Ring Acacia trees here at our Florida campus.
This management process of selecting the strongest stems, and culling out the rest, allows for the tree’s energy to be focused on growing those specific stems, leading to faster and straighter growth for poles or firewood. The prunings can then be fed to livestock as nutritious forage, used for mulch, and/or used to make thorny fences.
Cultivating 2, 3, or 4 stems demonstrates different management choices. Selecting for fewer stems leads to larger-sized wood harvested less frequently, while having more stems means harvesting smaller diameter wood more often.
FMNR helps regenerate a sustainable wood source for the small-scale farmer. Soil fertility is generally higher under these trees because they fix nitrogen in partnership with microbes in the soil. They attract animals to their shade who in turn deposit their urine and manure to the field.
Documentation on FMNR is available on ECHOcommunity.org in Spanish, French, Swahili, and Portuguese.
Visit http://edn.link/fmnr for more information!