Growing the Wonder Trees of the Schools Green Initiative Challenge
Despite this, there is hope. The KenGen Foundation’s Green Initiative Challenge expansion project, in partnership with Better Globe Forestry and Bamburi Cement Ltd is a schools afforestation project aimed at greening over 500 acres of arid and semi arid land. This will take 300,000 tree seedlings, and 113,956 fruit seedlings in over 900 schools within a period of 10 years within the 7-Forks area. The GIC also encourages the setting up and planting of trees in woodlots within the surrounding households.
The trees of choice carefully selected for the project are Senna siamea (Muveshi), a fast growing tree that provides almost immediate benefits through coppicing which provides wood fuel for many years; and Melia volkensii (Mukau)a highly commercially valuable timber source. Both trees provide green shade all year round, are adaptable to dry climatic conditions and are easy to plant and grow to maturity.
Growing Muveshi
Muveshi is particularly suited to grow in lowland tropics with a monsoon climate. It will only grow when its roots have access to groundwater, and the maximum length of the dry period
Flowers of Senna siamea.
should not exceed 4-8 months. It is susceptible to cold and frost and does not do well at altitudes above 1300m. It requires a mean annual temperature of 20-31o Celsius, and a mean annual rainfall of 400-1,500 mm.
