Kikar

Kikar (Acacia nilotica, now often Vachellia nilotica) is the thorny, dark-barked legume that already lines canals and field bunds across the Punjab plains and Sindh coast. For a syntropic grower the honest reason to plant it is simple: it puts down a deep root, fixes its own nitrogen, and hands you firewood, fence posts, and dry-season goat fodder off land that would otherwise grow nothing but salt and dust.

Where it thrives

Kikar is built for hard ground. It grows from sea level to about 2,000 m on a wide range of soils, including the degraded saline and alkaline patches that defeat most fruit trees, and tolerates periodic flooding in ravine country.¹ It handles annual rainfall anywhere from roughly 250 to 1,500 mm and survives a brutal temperature swing of about -1 to 50 degrees C, though hard frost will damage seedlings.² On a severely saline Sindh test site it survived well and reclaimed soil; under salt stress it out-performed shisham, pulling soil electrical conductivity down and stacking on biomass when paired with farmyard manure.³ It mines groundwater, so do not plant it where the water table is precious.

Role in the system

Kikar is a pioneer and a nitrogen fixer, the species you push into the worst corner of a new food forest to begin building soil. Its narrow crown shades lightly, so it makes an honest windbreak around fields without smothering the strip below.¹ In a syntropic line it sits in the emergent-to-high stratum, throws nitrogen into the system through root nodules, and earns its keep as a coppice and chop-and-drop tree: cut it for poles and the stump pushes again, while the prunings become mulch and the pods drop as fodder. Treat it as a support and biomass species that funds the climax fruit and nut trees coming up beside it, not as a permanent neighbour for shade-sensitive crops.

Growing it

Establishment is the easy part: kikar regenerates readily from seed and can be direct-seeded or planted as nursery seedlings.² The three decisions that matter are placement, protection, and the pruning calendar. Place it upwind or on the saline margin, not in the middle of your orchard. Protect young stems from browsing animals until they are above grazing height. Then commit to regular pollarding or coppicing every few years so it feeds biomass and fodder into the system instead of growing into a single tall timber trunk that shades everything. Avoid interplanting cereals directly under it; trials show grain yields crash in its root zone.¹

What you get

The wood is nearly twice as hard as teak and burns hot, with a calorific value around 4,950 kcal/kg that makes premium charcoal.² Pods and foliage carry roughly 10 to 20 percent crude protein and become a fundamental feed for goats, sheep, and camels through the dry season.⁴ Bark yields tannin for leather, and managed plantations run 20 to 25 year rotations for posts and fuel. Tannins limit fodder value, so feed kikar browse as part of a mix.

Sourcing notes

Manage coppice cycles with a sharp bypass pruner, and shield young stems with tree guard mesh until they clear browsing height. For how kikar fits a grazed mature system see livestock in the mature canopy and swale maintenance in year seven.

Sources

1. World Agroforestry (ICRAF) (2009). “Acacia nilotica, Agroforestree Database.” World Agroforestry Centre.
2. Winrock International / NFTA (1992). “Acacia nilotica: pioneer for dry lands.” Nitrogen Fixing Tree Association.
3. Yousaf, M.T.B. et al. (2022). “Effect of Organic Amendments on Vachellia nilotica and Dalbergia sissoo under Saline Stress.” Plants (Basel).
4. Heuzé, V., Tran, G. et al. (2016). “Babul (Acacia nilotica).” Feedipedia, INRAE-CIRAD-AFZ-FAO.