Growing pomegranates on Al Jabal al-Akhdar
Aftab H. Kola
Sunday, September 13, 2009 12:30:15 AM Oman Time
ONCE upon a time, the luxuriant date palm was the ‘tree of life’ in this part of the world and barring the cultivation of dates, farming in Arabia was a perpetual contest between man and nature.
But today the scene has changed dramatically with the government of Oman backing all efforts to produce fruits and vegetables in the country. Perhaps the government has self-sufficiency in mind. What government does not?
The agricultural sector plays a leading role in food self-sufficiency and in contributing considerably towards non-oil export. Due to continuous and growing inter-relationship with other economic sectors, the agricultural activities make great impact on social development as well as on employment and rural communities.
Jabal Al Akhdar, where the height of the peaks vary from 7,000 to 9,000 feet, moored high up in the central mountain ranges of Al Hajar, is not just a plethora of colour and sheer unadulterated picture-postcard mountains, but also a place where fruit orchards and roses flourish.
Seeing is believing
Come September and the mountains here bloom with a profusion of pomegranates and a variety of fruits, fruits the kind which no one would believe grow here — peaches, pears of many different origins. And so recently one fine morning we ascended the green mountain to explore the fruit oasis.
The climb up to Jabal Akhdar isn’t that tough, but one has to be careful as unlike on Indian roads, people here do not have the habit of blowing their horn while driving.
Our first visit was to the farm of the Ministry of Agriculture where we met Engineer Saleh Mohammed Al Abri, director-general of Agriculture and Animal Wealth, Interior Region, Ministry of Agriculture and Salim Rashed Marhoon Al Tobi, manager of the farm.
Taking us around, Engineer Saleh told us that Jabal Al Akhdar is home to about 22,000 pomegranates trees spread over nine villages.
During September-October these mountains transform into a fruit paradise with the full-blown goodness of luscious fruits — pomegranates, grapes, strawberries, raspberries, pears, apricots, plums, peaches, figs, walnuts and almonds, among others. But it’s the pomegranate that stands tall among other fruits. It represents the most valuable source of income for farmers in these mountains.
The most lucrative of Jabal’s fruit crops, pomegranates, account for the major chunk of a farmer’s income through agriculture. Just as prized though is the walnut, which is ranked only next to the pomegranate as a much-valued cash crop.
The finest pomegranates in the world are grown in the terraced villages on the Sayq plateau here. In Sayq alone 373 farms produce a plethora of different fruits. For the farmers of Wadi Bani Habib, Shuraijah, Al Ayn and Sayq pomegranates are the year’s most valuable cash crop.
The stage begins in February with the pruning of the trees.
In May the trees bloom with beautiful bright red flowers, heralding the harvest to come. The semi-deciduous trees with their bright green glossy leaves are nurtured by loamy soil, around 300mm of winter rain, low humidity and hot summers. They grow up to eight metres high and a good tree will bear about 250 pomegranates every season.
The price for the pomegranates is decided at an auction in Nizwa souq. By 5am the farmers from the mountains have travelled down to ensure that the fruit is ready to go for auction. The September harvest yields the second large cash crop, walnuts. One mature walnut tree produces 15,000 to 20,000 nuts in a season. Other fruits cultivated in September are grapes and pears.
The farm administered by the Ministry of Agriculture on seven acres of Sayq plateau nurtures hybrid pomegranates as well as a variety of Mediterranean trees such as apricots, plums, peaches, figs, olives, almonds, pistachios and apples. Another favourite from the mountain is the bluish-black berry found on the thorny boot trees.
According to the Directorate of Agriculture, a total of 52,948 trees are scattered all over the mountains. Of these pomegranates take the bulk — 20,458 trees. Pomegranates are the major farm product in the area. But only 400 are in the government farm though, the rest are distributed among nine villages in the area.
Among fruit trees, grapes (1,084), quince (1,646), apricots (3,437) are grown. Among the villages which are home to pomegranate trees, Sayq tops the list with 6,456 trees while Al Shuraijah with 4,721 trees and Wadi Bani Habib with 1,601 trees are the other two villages where the delightful fruits are cultivated in abundance. They have 23 varieties of olives here. In the world there are around 300 varieties, the DG said. Not just cultivation, they are planning to produce olive oil in Oman and have found that they can produce the best quality olive oil in this country.
Just imagine made-in-Oman olive oil stacked in our supermarkets, won’t we be proud? Of course we would. Yes, they are out to make every Omani proud. There we found a small green shrub like plant — Al Elan — we think that’s what they called it. When mashed in your hands it leaves a subtle smell of some kind of a perfume. Incidentally it is found in Kerala also. Where it is grown as a garden plant. Here they extract perfume from it and its wood can be used for making house roofs. We also feasted on figs, a variety of them, including the wild cactus variety. (Here a word of caution: don’t make haste while plucking them, their thorns have an uncanny knack of penetrating deep into your skin and making you feel quite uncomfortable).
Strawberry, raspberry, both crimson and scarlet; apricot, varieties of wild berries. You name them, the farm grows them here. There are grapes too at the farm, both purple and greenish-white varieties, both big and small … man it is a veritable feast out there.
There was even an apple plant, yes, plant. It was just a plant and looked healthy and showed promise of blooming into a healthy tree. Just imagine plucking apples in Oman.
Anything is possible. This is what those working in this farm are proving to the world. There are 17 people working here. There are about 5,000 rose plants at the farm. Roses are grown in March-April. You can extract seven litres of rose water per plant.
Organic farming
This farm is doing a great deal to promote advanced organic farming. They use only compost and water. For compost the dung of sheep and goats is used. As we got talking, the DG revealed a secret to us. One that they rarely show outsiders — yes, he took us to the laboratory where the project he himself had started in 2003, the Integrated Pest management Project, was being worked on.
IPM lays emphasis on developing alternative control measures to conventional insecticides such as biological and cultural control methods.
Pomegranates are prone to being infested by larvae of a moth causing complete loss of yield.
A wide range of hosts characterises the insect, among which is the wild Al-Talh (Acacia raddiana). The strategy for controlling the pest is by adopting one or more of the following options: Awareness, early forecast, biological control using locally reared eggs and proper cultural practices.
Encouraging results were obtained through the adoption of such strategy during 2005.The amount of chemical used for control of the pest was reduced by more than 83% with only 1.1% of fruits infested with the moth. The quality showed improvement and average fruit weight also increased by 7.3% compared to that in 2003.
Percentage of infested fruits was also reduced to 1.3% the same year. During 2006 and 2007, 180 and 220 million respectively of Trichogramma SP were produced and released into the field. This ongoing programme is one of most successful IPM programmes in the Sultanate.
To control pests in pomegranates a parasite is released into the tree. Pomegranates are infested by a kind of moth, which lays eggs on the fruits. When the eggs hatch, they penetrate the skin of the fruit and go inside, totally destroying the fruit.
The Tricograma parasites that are released in the pomegranates garden latch onto these eggs laid by the moths and eat them up, thus saving the fruits.
