Harvesting of Tabernanthe Iboga
The major activity with iboga is the harvesting of the plant. While harvesting of a plant by root means killing a plant totally, at Bulk African Trade we seek to promote and practice sustainable iboga farming. For that reason we have adopted 1:10 planting system where we plant 10 young plants after one (1) matured iboga plant harvest.
In this way, we will have a rotating system. The total number of iboga plants will always increase, and over the longer time period the plant can grow, the more quantity and quality of iboga root bark production there will be.
Harvesting of tabernanthe iboga needs to be done carefully. This is to say that harvesting iboga means uprooting the plant totally. Therefore correct measures must be taken into consideration.
The most suitable time for uprooting is during the rainy season as the ground becomes much loosen and hence making uprooting not much a big deal. Iboga is a valuable item and during uprooting it must be done in such a way that all the roots of each plant must be taken out. But nevertheless some people do the uprooting during dry season.
After uprooting the next activity is the peeling of the root bark and the inner bark. A matured iboga plant can give as much as 25grams root bark. Sharp objects such as knife is used for the peeling.
The Iboga alkaloids are concentrated in the inner layer of the bark. That is the layer between root wood and outer root bark. In this layer, the plant transports all the nutrition from the roots to the top parts of the plant.
The hold plant contains Iboga alkaloides.
Here is the percentage of the alkaloid concentration.
Inner Root Bark 5.5%
Inner Stem Bark 1.3%
Leafes, less than 1%
The outer bark and the wood don't have alkaloids.
The journey of iboga in Ghana, West Africa inspires us to give our best each and everyday in our farms.
