Moringa — Open questions

⚠️ “Unknown” is preferable to fabricated certainty. Each question below can be retired only with an accepted S-#### source note or a recorded EX-#### experiment.

Production-system choice

1. For a Mexican home garden, when is one perennial household tree preferable to an orchard or a dense repeatedly cut leaf stand?
2. Which cultivar or seed source is appropriate for leaves, edible pods, dry seeds, or oil in the target climate?
3. What frost exposure limits survival, regrowth, flowering, and pod production by age and cultivar?

Establishment and management

4. Under home-garden conditions, what are the establishment and long-term differences between seed propagation and cuttings?
5. What spacing × cutting height × harvest interval balances usable leaf yield, plant recovery, labor, and quality in a small plot?
6. What irrigation schedule is practical in tropical, subtropical, and semi-arid Mexican settings? Seasonal totals remain Unknown.
7. Which fertilizer or compost strategy is appropriate for a repeatedly harvested leaf crop without importing field-trial rates blindly?

Harvest and processing

8. How many labor-hours are required per kilogram of usable leaves, edible pods, cleaned dry seed, dried leaf, and pressed oil? These are separate products.
9. What manual indicators identify the correct harvest stage for edible pods versus mature dry seed?
10. Which household drying method balances food safety, color, nutrient retention, energy use, and storage stability for leaves? Needs experiment.
11. How much cleaned seed and oil can a manual or small mechanical press recover, including losses and cleaning time? Needs experiment.
12. What authoritative food-safety limits or processing cautions apply to leaves, pods, seeds, and seed products? Medical claims are out of scope.

Pests, storage, and local fit

13. Which pests and diseases materially affect moringa in Mexican home gardens, and how do they vary by region and season?
14. How long do dried leaves and seeds remain safe, usable, and—when intended for planting—viable under household storage?
15. Does moringa self-seed or create invasive-management problems in the intended Mexican region?

Candidate experiments

• E1: Seed vs cutting establishment in identical containers or beds.
• E2: Small-plot pruning/cutting-height × harvest-interval trial for leaves.
• E3: Manual leaf-stripping and drying benchmark (time, fresh mass, dry mass, losses).
• E4: Manual pod/seed harvest and cleaning benchmark.

Confirmed metadata gaps

• Practical Mexico extension guidance is thin despite one Northeast Mexico biomass study (10.54167/tch.v10i3.177).
• Academic metadata does not answer household labor per kilogram.
• Frost thresholds, practical irrigation schedules, and local pest calendars remain weak.
• Medical literature is abundant but does not answer cultivation questions.