Jatropha

Jatropha is a miracle plant when it comes to bio diesel. Each tree can produce between 1 and 2 gallons a year of fuel. We are planting 6,500+ trees on our farm. This will be plenty of seeds to help the rest of the farms in Lanas get planted. We can also plant more trees from cuttings.

We are part of a project that is building a bio fuels station along the main road to the beach. Our co op will be producing over 25,000 gallons a year in just a few seasons to sell to the busses and trucks in the Puriscal area.

We picked seeds today for the first time from our trees! 6/8/09! More seeds on 6/11/09! We are going to start pruning and replanting the cuttings on 6/12/09. We should be able to plant hundreds more from the cuttings and help our bigger trees branch out more rather than getting any taller.

We planted most of the new seeds but we are taking a handfull to a group that will be testing the oil content for us.

We just picked up our first 50+ Jatropha trees to plant. We are cutting grass and preparing land for planting them this week. We are excited to get these trees in the ground. This is the start of a decades long project to help this community flourish. February 2008

First hills to plant

The trees above are now over a year old and going strong.

We have planted nearly 800 more Jatropha this last few months. February/March 2009

Michael watering the trees

Mountain climbing while enjoying his work:) In the dry season we must water anywhere from once to twice a week depedning on the weather.

We have planted a couple hundred more trees in March and April. We are starting to see our first flowers! We have seen our first fruits! The seeds a large and healthy.

We planted 1,500 more seeds on another 1/2 hectare this May. Nick, Carlos, Johnny, Homer, and Joshua worked hard to clear and plant the steep hills on the front of the farm. May 2009

We are Planting another 500 seeds in bags this week. We are planting another section of the farm when they are ready. June 2009

We planted cuttings from some of our mature trees in June 2009. By August they were doing wonderful. Lots of new leaves and branches already. Much faster than starting from seed.