Growing trees and food in the desert while preserving water

With the Saudi Green Initiative and the Middle East Green Initiative summit ongoing, the progress of our partnership with Mawarid Holding and Barari is inspiring to follow.

Growing trees and strengthening food security in desert conditions with less water requirement will have significant value for these initiatives.

Planting 10 billion trees in Saudi Arabia and 50 billion trees across the Middle East is equal to restoring 200 million hectares of degraded land and it can offset 2,5% of global CO2 emissions.

Desert Control is a company specialized in climate-smart agri-tech solutions to combat desertification, soil degradation, and water scarcity. Its patented Liquid Natural Clay restores and protects soil, reducing water usage for agriculture, forests, and green landscapes. Liquid Natural Clay (LNC) enables sand and degraded soil to retain water and nutrients. LNC increases crop yields while reducing water and fertilizer consumption by up to 50%.

[great]

Deep mulch… like 4” or more… will keep the soil Much Cooler. Which will cause the plant to require less water… enable it to take up nutrients much better, and will (obviously) aid I. Preventing evaporation.

Use grass clippings and toss in some worms… and watch that add many more layers of goodness

[mikedonovan]

This monoculture design will likely consume a great quantity of scarce, desert water with an insignificant, nutrient deficient yield. The polyculture design created by Geoff Lawton in the Jordan desert only uses water captured and sequestered on site; his design is a beautiful oasis yielding nutrient dense food. Such a stark contrast in design philosophies.

[laynelins]

Plant zucchini, passion fruit and others...to shade the trees and their leaves will nourish the earth(Brazil te assistindo).

[Raylen_Fa-ield]

Beautiful to see. Once those roots get to full growth they will help secure and nourish the soil

[browpetj]

And those talking about mulches and what not... forget it in the UAE desert it just dries up and blows away! Even the humic layer in sclerophyllous woodlands is barely able to sustain enough bacterial or fungal life to break down fast enough! Imagine in the desert. Need pioneer spp, ground cover stuff. Loads of ideas in these comments, but it's a mammoth task. Hats of to this company for giving it a shot. Not the easiest country in the GCC to work with either!

[desertpermaculture-thar]

i transformed a 200 acre desert to a profitable horticulture project alone.

[gman]

I developed a system a few years ago that can drastically increase cloud cover to reduce high temperatures during summer months & increases rainfall but unfortunately no government agencies in Australia want to know about it. I would love to see somewhere that has a bit of forward thinking like the UAE or anywhere else for that matter try it & prove that we can easily green desert areas with water!

[tanakakokilovad]

Thanks you 🌱 for growing trees🌳 for our oxygen🍃 🌱🌿🍃🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳👍

[loneforest]

Great Job, greening desert is easier than making colony in Mars

[stumpfarm]

Great, looking forward to a 3 to 5 year follow up video.

[ziaarastu]

Mulch around the plants. it would help to retain the moisture.

[raulguzman]

Thank you so much for your work! Beautiful and brilliant initiative.

[armnzky]

for desert environment like in middle east, why don't you apply this method in residential development. every occupied house has its own grey water to irrigate plants in its surrounding garden.

there every house can have larger yard. because its desert, land is in abundance.
you can copy american/canadian residential style but with larger garden for greenery purpose.

start the greenery from new residential and commercial developments. allocate larger yard for every individual building

[howtogrowdragonfruitplant]

Very cool . Some ideas. Maybe you csn use some 100% white sand so it will deflect the heat. And dig some holes where water can collect during rain.

[servantofthetruegod]

The Chinese have some bonding agent they are using as well, and they are planting licorice because it takes nitrogen from the air and gives it to the soil. Beans do that nitrogen give back as well.
Look into the Moringa tree as it can grow in that climate and is a very nutritious superfood

[gloriaamandajimenezjimenez]

Saludos desde Ecuador, gracias por compartir, excelente trabajo, ya nos gustara que lo hagan en mi pais. Bendiciones.

[naseemaziz]

Excellent initiative wish you loads of success.

[sheetalbhalerao]

Plant trees 🌳 after studying from Sandy regions of Rajasthan such as Khejari, Gunda babool ker Rohida etc.These trees suitable for sandy regions of Rajasthan

[exb.r.buckeyeman]

Great effort, I hope it works for you.

[TheMacValk]

I am nog an naturlist or som e tree lover, but lately I read a lot about the sort of tress being plant. people try to plant the most easy tree that is posible to grow, , and then it looks like green and healty nature... but i read more and more about to plant trees that are good for that specificik region. for example in the netherlands we plant a lot of trees but of all the trees the most are not good. you need the trees that grew here original, and then nature will do the rest.
this project looks great and they are doing more ery nice things like the mangroves in arabia and i hope (for the world) they will also plant the trees that grew here original.