Agricultural Development in the West Bank (ص 131)

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Agricultural Development in the West Bank (ص 131)

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Qultural practices nes
Almond enble olives and grapes in being as versatile in
trees res!
equirenents. In fact almonds
their topographic and climatic r
able to rockinessS+ steep slopes
lives and grapes, because
occasional
are even less vulneré
droughts, and soil shallowness than 0!
ve feature of a deeper root system. As
they have the distincti
Such, almonds are particularly suitable in areas where land
Mality is poor, even for growing olives OF grapes+ This, however,
comes at the cost of a mich lower productivity in comparison with
©rchards grown on land with better quality or under irrigation.
West Hank farmers grow almonds by direct sowing of seeds from
Bitter or solid sweet varieties. Land reclamation prior to
Sowing is rarely practiced (a sharp contrast to Hebron vineyards) -
®erging seedlings are either left to grow as they are, or grafted
tw years later with buds from the soft-shelled "Farek" variety.
The new tree begins commercial production in about 2 - 3 years.
Mature orchards can thrive with minimal levels of husbandry, but
Gain at the cost of lower productivity. It has been found that
the vast majority of farmers do little other than ploughing of
‘thelr orchards once or twice a year. Pruning is rare, as is
Pest control or fertilizer use.
fa the
important feature of/alnond tree, as mentioned earlier, is its
beer Productive life span, mostly in the range of 12 - 16 years.
This is in sharp contrast to olives, but somewhat comparable to
Wes: noises, £2ts Totnad had longevity of bitter and hard-
“Melled varieties is mich longer than that of the soft-shelled
"ree. this, as we shall see later, is die mostly to the
“Seeptibinity of soft-shelled varieties to certain virulent
Sect,
‘* common in the area.
Because of the relatively short life span of almonds they are
commonly interplanted with olives for as long as they are too
small to occupy their allotted land. Growers are encouraged
to do so by the wide spacing of olive orchards (around 8 - 10
eters apart) and the farmers’ drive to exploit their land more
Productively during the interim pre-maturity period. Almond
trees will thus be uprooted in 7-8 years to give space to olives.
In principle, interplanting olives with almonds is certainly well
Justified on economic grounds, but in mst areas this procedure
has been practiced wrongly by leaving almonds too long in the
Orchard, hence causing severe damage to olives. With a deeper
TOot system, almond trees compete more aggressively for scarce
™oisture and nutrients available in an already marginal soil.
nsequently, olive trees remain stunted and fail to give a good
“Top, thus giving growers a further justification (though basically
false) for maintaining almonds.
Profi tabi: ty situation
AS in the case of olives, profitability of almonds varies considerably
8 a result of pronounced fluctuations in output, which makes it
“ery difficult to talk about an "average" yield. Ascertaining
Profitability is further compounded by the multiplicity of end
Products and non-systenatic patterns of picking (green, half-solid,
“°lid). the forthcoming analysis assumes that the entire crop is
Picked j
in the solid stage.
Ts
"ble (vir-11) contains a sumary of wsts and returns per donum
cited below
of
Productive almonds (10-12 years old). The figur.
“Ply to the soft-shelled Farek variety. Guparison of net
ut
“turns with bitter and hard-shelled almonds is summarized at the

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Agricultural Development in the West Bank

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المنشئ

Hisham Masoud Awartani

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