Chapter 8 - Growing Moringa for Dummies

It’s about time I wrote about the actual growing of Moringa and other items around the farm that have been pushed through droughts, floods and being watered by hand. Growing Moringa is not overly hard, but growing it right sure has its challenges.

Finding the correct seed to grow is quite hard in itself. I have been searching for years for a PKM-1 or PKM-2 strain of seed. Not all Moringa is grown the same, and not all strains produce the same results. You see, this strain of Moringa is what separates the really cheap brands from the successful brands.

Anyone can plant or clone Moringa, but there are not many in Australia who have these types of Moringa variations available.

The Destruction of the Seed

To get to where I am now, I have to go back quite a few years to my first few attempts at getting seeds into Australia. Biosecurity and the agriculture department love to destroy plants and seeds on a whim. Regardless of whether they are good or not, they will schedule them for destruction and you need to act fast to prove they are an acceptable item to bring into the country.

It makes sense in a way. Biosecurity and the Australian agriculture sector don’t have a great track record when it comes to keeping disease, pests and weeds out of the country. When I look at all the rat’s tail, lantana and cane toads trying to constantly take over my farm, I am reminded of their mistakes.

My first two attempts at getting these Moringa seed variations into the country ended up with them being destroyed. Mainly over paperwork and Biosecurity getting off over a seed burn. When the seeds burn, my wallet burns with it. Thousands were spent in the cost of goods and shipping them via air to Australia. All for the final destination to be flames.

You can see why I was so hesitant to try again and why I put it off for years. I spent a long time trying to find decent providers in Australia, but the industry just is not there yet. You can find seeds anywhere, but you can’t find the seeds I need.

Roll On 2025: The Year of the Seed

About halfway through the year I got the opportunity to buy out a competitor at a great price. He is a good bloke and we came to a deal for me to purchase The Moringa Shop. He had cracked the code well before me, he knew how to get the seeds into the country and introduced me to his supplier with instructions on what to do.

My eyes lit up with excitement and it was not long before I placed an order for a big box of Moringa PKM-1 seeds. To my surprise, this was pretty straightforward, until of course it got to customs and Biosecurity.

Straight away I get the notification for destruction like so many times beforehand. It must be a fetish of theirs, letting in obnoxious weeds while hampering small business as best they can. The run-ins we have had over the years could fill a book and it will probably be the leading cause of stress that inevitably leads to my demise. Who knows, maybe I can request to be cremated by Biosecurity. I hear they do a good job of it.

This time around, the paperwork was airtight. They could not destroy it. No Christmas card for me that year. I got it through and delivered to my door. A whole box of thousands of PKM-1 Moringa seeds all for me to grow and sell. The smile on my face was my own version of Christmas. A fight well fought and to the victor, the spoils.

Not Quite the Spoil I Was Looking For

I tried multiple ways to propagate these new Moringa seeds. Planting them straight, ripping the wings off them, soaking them for 24 hours and other ideas I researched. Not one grew. Not a single sprout appeared. Weeks of waiting, checking, hoping… nothing. At this point I wondered if I had ordered ornamental seeds.

I sent these seeds to farms around QLD. From Cairns to Toowoomba and again nothing grew. Every now and then a sprout would appear, but die soon after. The seeds were spoiled. My fight was in vain, and more money wasted on the impossible PKM-1 seed.

I put it down to the treatment that the seeds need to go through to get into Australia. So even when the government departments are not straight up screwing me over, they still manage to do it periodically while claiming import tax and storage fees.

I dreamt of owning this Moringa Farm and around the same time I went under contract on the land I found an Australian seller that had the exact seed I was looking for. I was hesitant at first, but the batch sizes were not too big so I got a few.

These worked. They worked really well. As a matter of fact, I got a 97% propagation rate on them. The imported batch had about a 3% propagation rate, so this was a massive improvement.

These are the seeds I planted here on the farm and continue to plant. These can be cloned, and the new seeds planted again. After years and years of error and error, I finally got the seed variation I wanted and it’s in the ground.

How to Grow Moringa for Dummies

So here we are, after a big intro and years in the making, here are my tips for growing Moringa oleifera from seed.

If you are wondering how to grow Moringa from seed at home, this is the exact method I use here on the farm.

1. Work out where you want to grow the tree. Moringa does not like being moved. You can move seedlings from trays, but be prepared to lose a few in the process. I find it works best if you grow it straight from seed and straight in the ground.
2. Soak the Moringa seeds for 24 to 40 hours. Get them wet, and if after 24 hours they have sunk, they are good to go. If they are floating, they’ve already given up and you should too.
3. After pulling out the sunken seeds, rip the wings off them. These are the light white or transparent parts of the seed.
4. From here you can put the Moringa seeds straight into the ground or a container. I like to put them in paper towels. Make sure the towel is damp, not dripping wet, and place them into a zip-lock sandwich bag.
5. Don’t zip it fully. Let the air flow a little and place the bag near a window that gets a decent amount of sun.
6. I find it takes between 2 and 5 days and you will see little roots coming out of the seeds. Get these into the ground and the Moringa will start to shoot out of your soil pretty quickly.

So these are the basics of getting the seeds to grow. It will get you started and you can grow your own Moringa as well. The PKM-1 and PKM-2 strains will give you a much better harvest and they are a more nutritious type of Moringa.

Growing Moringa for Pros

This is where we separate the hobby farmer from the professional. Your soil and fertilisers are going to play a massive role here. Moringa grows in most locations and most soil types, but if you want to get the absolute best out of your growth, follow these steps:

• Your soil needs to be sandy or well-draining. I learnt this the hard way with our floods. Moringa hates wet feet and I lost about 20% of my plants from our 200mm of rain over a weekend.
• Check your pH and get it to 6.2 to 7. A slightly acidic soil is great for Moringa. I personally try to keep it as neutral as I can.
• Loosen the soil underneath the Moringa plant. I use a post hole digger and go pretty deep. But remember when planting the seed, don’t put it in the hole. Mound it up so it is slightly above ground or you risk the water staying in the hole and giving the Moringa wet feet.
• Add fertiliser pellets or fish offcuts. I have added mud crab, fish and all sorts to the bottom of the newly dug hole. Cover it with dirt and put the Moringa seeds a fair way above it. This allows the Moringa roots to grow down, and when they reach the crab, fish or pellets, they will take the nutrients from them as they break down.
• Fertilise with seaweed when the Moringa is a seedling. The seaweed fertilisers absolutely help root growth and will help the plant establish much quicker.
• Remove the grass from the base of the plant. Cut it about a foot or so around your grow zone and mulch it once the seedlings appear. Grass will compete with your plant and at this early age it will do better than the Moringa.
• Don’t be afraid to prune your Moringa trees. Aim for around 90cm to a metre and give it the first cut. This keeps it low and bushy while promoting new growth.
• Prune the branches when they get long, but definitely prune around July to September. Just before the spring growth kicks in and the tree should go berserk.
• Keep fertilising with a high standard leaf fertiliser and keep checking the pH. The Moringa tree will really take off from here.

So these are my personal tips for growing very healthy Moringa oleifera. At the end of the day, it comes down to a few simple things:

• The quality of Moringa seed. They are not all made the same and you should aim to get the best you can.
• Sandy and/or well-draining soil. Don’t overwater or allow water to pool around the Moringa tree.
• Fertilisation. This is vital for quicker and healthier growth.

It is a lot of fun to grow. I have spent a fair bit of time experimenting with different ways to grow it, different soils and different seeds. This is the way I produce the best Moringa oleifera I can.

From One Novice Agriculture Farmer to Another

I am still learning and making mistakes. The above is very much my own unique way of growing Moringa so take it with a grain of salt. Don’t be afraid to experiment though. It’s fun to see the different ways it can grow depending on what you do to it.

Moringa is not the only thing I am trying to grow though, I have quite a few things going at the moment. There is turmeric, ginger, saltbush, lavender, rosemary, chillies, St John’s Wort, stevia, self-heal, Baikal skullcap and so much more. Most of these plants will be used for oil infusions, soaps and other cosmetics that we will make here on the farm.

We will also be growing our own vegetables and fruits for a bit of a self-sufficient lifestyle. The farm already has quite a number of mango trees, banana trees and macadamia trees all producing fruit as well as some citrus that we are waiting to see what type they are.

Learning how to grow food, including Moringa, is quite enjoyable and a big learning curve. Growing commercial scale items is a totally new ball game. Irrigation is the key here, and I still have not gotten it fully sorted out yet.

Watering Plants the Painful Way

I’ve spent a fair bit repairing my solar bore. But it is still not working, I am hopeful it will be only a few days to a week away though. For six weeks straight I have been carrying buckets of water down to the fields and watering it manually. At least it allows me to check each plant out and how they are doing. Like watching grass grow, except the grass does indeed grow much faster than the Moringa plants.

I came up with what is an obvious solution in hindsight for my water. The bore pumps up to the house, which goes past the Moringa field and vegetable patch. This bore used to water this area. So I used an electric pump that connects to the dam next to our house. I attached it to the end of the pipe from the bore. This let me pump water back down the hill and get water to the fields.

I bought a valve and installed it on the main pipe so I would not waste water running back down the bore. The pressure is not as good, but the water is getting there. This means I can attach a hose to the pipe and water the Moringa with a hose instead of a bucket. Maybe not a huge brag, but out here in the country where we have tank water and dams, it felt like a huge victory.

I will switch the valve once the bore is fixed and use that water again to water all the Moringa and vegetables. But before I get carried away, I am going to need to learn how to set up and run irrigation. Always something to learn here, but that’s going to feel like a real victory when it is running and all water is automated.

Getting the Weeds Under Control

The other major issue I have been having is all the weeds and regrowth. It is hard to keep up in this weather. It must be perfect weed-growing weather as the bastards pop up everywhere.

With my stupid lawnmower out of action permanently now, I will need to buy a new one. But in the meantime, I got a pair of lawn mowers I call John and Deere. These goats are here to eat as much as they possibly can and stay out of my Moringa fields.

They are a bit scared of us at the moment but we will win them over. They have been here nearly a week as I write this and soon I plan to be able to walk them, and tether them to areas of the farm so they can eat everything around.

My chicken coop is full of pumpkin, it has gone berserk. So their first job is going to be cleaning in there so I can get more chickens. I put some pumpkin and pumpkin vine in John and Deere’s pen, and they looked insulted by the offering. It has not been touched days later so I think I am going to need to clear that damn pen out manually.

I must have bought the only fussy goats around. They won’t even clear the weeds from their own pen and prefer offerings of pellets and tree branches. To top it off, they like my wife more than me. Sexist goats to boot. This could be another broken lawn mower, time will tell.

About the Author

Joel Molloy is the founder of Moringa Products Australia and the writer behind The Moringa Farm Chronicles, documenting the wins, mistakes, experiments and chaos of building a Moringa farm from scratch in rural Queensland.

From seed trials and irrigation problems to machinery failures, weeds, wildlife and farm life, Joel shares a first-hand account of what it takes to grow Australian Moringa the hard way.