My name is Nicholas Madzianike and I am 35 years old. I live in Nemaramba village in Chimanimani district, Manicaland province. In my community, deforestation has affected large swaths of land and exposed soils have been affected by erosion, leaving ugly scars.
I realised that something had to be done to stop further damage but lacked knowledge on how to do it since the process of covering bare soils requires knowledge on how to heal depleted land. I was fortunate to be invited to a workshop focusing on growing trees. The workshop was hosted by Participatory Organic Research Extension and Training (PORET) Trust in partnership with Fambidzanai Permaculture Centre (FPC).
There were 20 participants in the workshop and I was one of them. I learnt about how to care for tree seedlings, how to plant and maintain the trees. I also learnt about how to propagate trees using different grafting methods. The training was an eye opener for me and I enjoyed the presentations and practical assignments.
After the training, I went back home to start my own nursery. In order to establish a nursery in a sustainable way, I set up the nursery to cater for other farmers who would want to buy the tree seedlings. The income helped me to buy all the other inputs needed to keep the process going.
The process of establishing a nursery starts with identifying the right location for the nursery. The location should be close to a water source because the seedlings require watering almost every day. They easily wilt if they are not watered because the leaves will be tender.
The seeds are planted in containers that do not easily break. Easily available materials such as re-cycled containers of Chibuku Super beer and 2kg plastic sugar containers may work well if commercially produced pockets are not available or costly. The soil for planting the seeds should be fertile enough so as to promote fast germination and growth.
I used well decomposed leaves (murakwani) to fill the pockets and then planted the seed. I started with 500 tree seedlings. These included orange, mango, guava, lemon, grape, mutohwe (Snot apple), muuyu (baobab) and croton trees. There was a mixture of indigenous and exotic trees.
Currently I have 872 trees in my nursery. I sell one tree seedling for US$1. During the tree planting season, the demand for tree seedlings is high, this is the time I generate more income. On average I sell 50 tree seedlings in a month and this increases during the rainy season. I use the money to invest in the project by buying some required inputs. I also use the money to pay school fees for my children.
Setting up a nursery at home has also encouraged me to plant trees around my homestead and in the fields. Every year I plant some trees and this is helping to cover up the damaged land. I also mobilise other community members to plant trees on their fields and around their homesteads so as to reverse the damage.