Laxmi Taru

[A supplement to the post on Tree Plantation. Copied from a post by Harshad Patravali on Art of Living Pune Yahoo Group]

The importance of planting Laxmi Taru Plant!

India is one of the largest producers of the edible oil in the world. We used to export this oil but in the last few years due to over population and the changing life style. the demand for this oil has grown considerably. There is a wide gap between the demand ( almost 6%) and the supply ( less than 2% ). This gap has forced us to import oil from the other countries and thus spend a great amount of foreign exchange. This year we have imported around 52 laks tons of oil and spent around 11000 corers. So far improving the production of the existing oil seeds has failed considerably and also this kind of measure may affect the production of the other essential crops. So there is a need to plant the tree which can be a good substitute for this issue. In 1939 scientist have found the tree called Seemaruba and the production of this plant can give us lot of advantages which are as follows:
1. This tree consumes highest amount of Carbon Di oxide and purifies the environment and can help in reducing the heat. For the global warming issue this is very useful
2. It can grow in barren land and reduces or stops the soil erosion.It requires very little water to grow. India has 60 million hectares wasteland and this land can be used for growing this tree.
3. Seeds can give edible oil, non edible oil and diesel. The seeds have 60 to 75% oil as against 30 t0 35% in peanuts, soybean. One tree can give around 15 to 30 kg seeds and from that can get around 2.5 to 5 Lt oil and equal amount of oil cake which can be used for bakery items,vegetable oils,soaps,cosmetic s,bio-diesel.
4. It has medicinal value, can be used for malaria and diarrhoea.
5. The pulp of the seeds can be used for compost or drinking juice.
6. The cover of the seeds can be used for making of the card board or as a raw material
7. The wood of the tree can be used for the light furniture.Guruji has named this tree Laxmi taru and so far distributed more than 6 lakhs of this plant. The seeds of this plant is available. I request all of you to either plant the seeds or buy these plants and grow it and encourage others to grow it. This is a great attempt from all of us for global warming issue.

Tree Plantation

Avla, Imli, Badaam, Sitaphal and Laxmitaru saplings were lined up in a corner in Keshav Mangal Karyalya near Hinjewadi Chowk, as rain pelted down on our rain caps. I love Sitaphal shake so it sounded like a good idea to plant a Sitaphal tree...my grand children would also be able to enjoy a Sitaphal shake then! The second sapling I picked up was Laxmitaru, because Guruji recommends this one and it has a whole lot of benefits! Soon everyone picked up their two trees and a sickle! yea, a sickle :-) and we were off to the small hill in Phase I Hinjewadi.

I had to go get a couple of late comers and when we reached the hill again, Pallavi had already planted her Badaam Tree and she had done it rather artistically. And, did I get inspired! The rain had stopped and there I was hitting the ground hard with my sickle! The ground was intriguing, wet soil, multi coloured pebbles, grass strands...and as it loosed up it was quite a sight! I removed the loose soil and planted my Laxmitaru, creating a nice little platform around it and then posed for some pictures :-) :-)

It had started to rain again, most of us were now digging up to plant the second tree. Two little boys living in the slum around also joined us! I spotted a really nice spot to plant my Sitaphal tree, just on the edge of a small cliff structure. I jumped my way there and my enthusiastic sickle started to bolt the ground; I had hardly dug up when my sickle met with rock...ton ton ton and phew! I had to go back to a comparatively boring spot where my Sitaphal Tree would stand. It wasn't long before we were all done and clapping for ourselves (on my insistence :) )