Training manual - The Vetiver Network International

10.1 The Miracle
10. THE SUMMING UP
10.1.1 The Miracle Grass: The lecturer hinself never believes in miracles. He may be borne
to be a scientist. From his early years of childhood, he always argued with his mother (who, like
most Thai people of her age, believed in superstitious and miraculous issues) that there is no such
thing as miracle. When the first International Conference on Vetiver was organized under the
theme, “Vetiver: A Miracle Grass” , he was not so happy with the theme, but how cloud he argue?
Yet, at the end of ICV-1, he was half-convinced that the work “miracle” may be appropriate to use,
especially if we want to advise the farmers to grow vetiver for soil and water conservation (as many
of them still believe in such thing as miracle). At the same time, we must try to prove that vetiver
itself is a wonderful plant. Other than using it as a single hedgerow for soil and water conservation,
which we all agree that it works, what other characteristics lend support to it to be called a ‘miracle’
The lecturer is not going to give the taniees a long list of those characteristics like ecological,
physiological, genetics, which have already been discussed at length earlier, but only a few most
fascinating ones:
♦ Dorught resistance, because it has deep root system, and unique tough shoot structure
which resists the force or running water, and at the same time, does not allow much water to
evaported from the plant.
♦ Living nail of its roots which enable it to penetrate deep down the soil of hard texture,
thereby breaking it, making it friable and porous enough for air and water to pass through.
♦ Living wall and barrier of both the above ground portion which acts as a sieve, trapping all
organic matters to be deposited right there in front of the hedgerow, thus increasing organic matter
and humidity, slowing down the fast runoff, and allowing it more time to infiltrate down the soil
layer, while the underground portion with thick mass of fibrous roots acting as underground wall
absorbing all nutrients, toxic substances, and only allowing clean and clear excess water to pass
through slowly. It works well on flat land, on gentle slopes, as well as steep slopes, and on diverse
types of soils.
♦ Its most amazing feature is probably its tolerance to a wide range of environmental
stresses, from acid soil to alkaline soil, from very dry place to the wet one, even heavy metals and
agrochemical used as pesticides; from pollutants of domestic and farm wastes to toxic industrial
wastes!
♦ Yet, unlike other grasses or legumes popularly used as cover crops, vetiver is not
fertilizer-and moisture-demanding. It can thrive even in pure sand with little soil moisture, yet, once
firmly established, it helps to make the environment suitable for other plants to grow. We now
know that it is a C-4 plant with close association with useful microorganisms that help it to fix
atmospheric nitrogen and dissolve insoluble soil phosphorus, both of which are important elements
for its growth. It is a humble brass, easy to grow and requires no maintenance once it is established.
It is a poor man’s crop. The lecturer recalls what Noel Vietmyer of the U.S. Academy of Science
once said, “It’s so worthless that even billions of specimens will not make any millionaires”. That
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