BioDesign N/L 21.6.11 - Help from the Noar Foundation - Wick Irrigation Progress June 21, 2011
Newsletter copied below, to include messages from three people in Graham's network of practitioners.
(Graham You may like to share the newsletters regularly with the collaborators. You are authorised to post to Collaborators Connect. Just send an email to dadamac-collaborators-connect@posterous.com and it will go out to the group. It will also be visible to any one who happens to come across it on the Internet. Hmm - Maybe we should do some studies on Search Engine Optimisation to help your newsletters to show up on google etc.)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: graham knight <graham075@googlemail.com>
Date: 21 June 2011 08:37 Subject: BioDesign N/L 21.6.11
I have got my attachment let read, understand it i will get back to you.
A few reasons to why i am interested in this technology:
Food availability-During off seasons , we look for greens every where they are not on market
Climatic changes we must come up with simple solutions like this.
Hope to hear from again
Richard K.
Very interesting. I know that farmers in our project will have some hard time keeping tree seedlings alive and we could try this technique at least with some of the farmers. It would be interesting to see what difference it makes in planting trees in drylands. Tree planting is one of the compulsory activities in our project in order for the farmer groups to get the tank building subsidy. So, to keep the project going farmers MUST plant some 10 seedlings per year to stay in the project. Eija
From: graham knight <graham075@googlemail.com>
Date: 21 June 2011 08:37 Subject: BioDesign N/L 21.6.11
Help from the Noar Foundation - Wick Irrigation Progress
I was invited to the Ashden Awards last week where they present prizes to the 'best' NGOs.
It became all too obvious that to win a prize you have to some sort of 'product'.
That means that NGOs like Noar Foundation, who believe that development is more important than handing out or selling products, has little chance of being recognised for the good they are doing!
Soon they will be spreading their efforts into Cameroon in an effort to help the marginalised in that country. You can visit their website at http://noarfoundation.org/ and contact them via Pauline at pauline.jeannerot@noarfoundation.org
Other development NGOs that wish to make contact through this N/L (which goes out to over 450 contacts) are welcome to make their offers here!
A year ago the director of a UK NGO, that wanted to introduce DIY Solar into Africa, was told by their donors that they only wanted to fund projects which produced measurable results!
Using Wicks
We have had news of useful experiments with wicks from some contacts and interest from several NGOs now using porous pots.
Although ideal for plant roots the cost/labour from using of clay pots can be too great.
We are now confident that we will soon have worked out how a plastic bucket plus wicks can do as well as a porous pot and at a fraction of the price.
Later we expect to have an irrigation system that can replace any number of pots with a central water container. This might seem a bit like drip lines but it is different in several respects!
What we don't know yet is how best to provide a high irrigation flow which might be needed during the growing period in a drought.
For this we can supply high flow 'wool' wicks to anyone prepared to experiment and keep in contact explaining what they are trying out.
Do let us know if this is of interest!
Graham
(snip).
Some wick messages:
I have got my attachment let read, understand it i will get back to you.
A few reasons to why i am interested in this technology:
Food availability-During off seasons , we look for greens every where they are not on market
Climatic changes we must come up with simple solutions like this.
Hope to hear from again
Richard K.
Very interesting. I know that farmers in our project will have some hard time keeping tree seedlings alive and we could try this technique at least with some of the farmers. It would be interesting to see what difference it makes in planting trees in drylands. Tree planting is one of the compulsory activities in our project in order for the farmer groups to get the tank building subsidy. So, to keep the project going farmers MUST plant some 10 seedlings per year to stay in the project. Eija
Hi Graham,
I have contacted with my boys at the farm and they told me the drop of water from the testing wick seem good. However I will be back in the farm in 3days
I am at Morogoro Region now. will updating you as soon as I reach the farm. Grhaham there is upcoming agriculture trade show do you think to participate and do the demonstration of this wonderfully wick Tech
Thanks Ramadhan