Hassan’s first steps to millions

Hassan Thomas is a gardener with an ornamental plants business in Minna. He also maintains my neighbour’s plants. 

That’s how we met. 

“You can do this on a guava?” Hassan asked the first time he stepped through my gates, moving toward a guava tree. 

He noticed what many people wouldn’t. He saw that I was cloning the tree from its branches so that I could get genetically identical copies without planting seeds. This way you can have hundreds of seedlings from one tree. 

“Yes you can,” I said, “I’ve successfully done it in Abuja, so I’m now doing it in Minna. You know about this technique?” I asked him. 

“Yes, but we can only do it on one type of tree and that’s because that tree has roots even on the branches,” Hassan explained. 

“Can you use the same method on mango and orange trees?” He asked. Hassan was intrigued when I told him that he could. So I showed him the one I did on a citrus tree.

“This is money,” he said excitedly. “I’ve already planted many trees for some big people. I can go and get thousands of seedlings from those trees! The trees are already big.”

Improved seedlings are very expensive. Some can sell as high as N15,000. That was why Hassan immediately saw the potential. It’s way easier to cut tree branches and sell them as seedlings than plant seeds, wait for a month for them to germinate and wait for more months for them to be big enough for sale. This method leap-frogs at least two steps. 

So Hassan asked me to teach him. By this time, I was excited to pass on the knowledge myself. 

“Sure. Come early tomorrow morning, “I told him. 

When he came I had gone for a morning walk. The next day he couldn’t come. He came on the third day. So I taught Hassan two methods of air layering. 

Now, with the permission of his clients, if he harvests 100 seedlings from one tree, even from 10 trees, he would earn N500,000  if he sells each seedling for N500. And he could sell each for more – much more. Although I sell seedlings myself, I still buy some – for up to N15,000 or N20,000.

So why am I teaching Hassan something he can use to compete against me – since we’re doing the same business in the same town?

Because it’s part of my 300-year plan. (I will write more about this plan another time.) 

For now, the simple explanation is that for every tree he sells or plants, I get a reward. For every animal or human that eats from the fruits, I get a reward. For every person who uses the knowledge I teach to benefit himself or his community, I get a reward from Allah. 

Indeed, Hassan’s excitement inspires me to teach more people. So I’m thinking of organising a workshop in Minna for interested youth to come and learn the practicals of it. 

But you don’t have to come to the workshop. You can simply google or search YouTube for  these keywords: “air layering trees.”

So what kind of fruits can you do this with? All kinds.  It’s very difficult to find a tree on which you cannot do air layering. I’ve done it on guava, sweet orange, mango tree, and grape. It may be difficult to do on some, though. For example, some people think you can’t air layer a papaya tree. But it’s one of the simplest trees to use for that purpose. As for mulberry, I’ve not been successful. However, with mulberry, you don’t have to air-layer. Just cut a branch and plant. You would have a new mulberry tree within two weeks. 

The benefit of air layering is that instead of waiting for seeds to germinate, you just wait for a few weeks to have fairly grown plants. For example, guava seeds can take up to a month or more to germinate. Then you wait for about two months for the seedlings to grow enough to transplant. 

Air layering guava also takes about a month to root. And that is it. Again, the chances of survival of the already grown trees are higher than the little seedlings. 

So far, even before I learned this technique, we had donated two thousand fruit trees to youth cooperatives. Now I’m thinking of teaching them air layering so that we can multiply them by ten. That will give us 20,000 trees. These new trees could be planted by the youths or they can also donate the way we donated to them. 

Our original plan is to donate and plant 250,000 trees in 10 states of the north. With air layering, we can reach the target of planting 250,000 fruit trees faster. We can also move through the 10 states more smoothly – and even go beyond the target. 

PS: Indeed, our target now is to plant 200 million trees in Nigeria.