The pistachio team together with the partners elaborated a strategy to provide consulting services, planting and inoculation material for farmers. The core idea of that strategy was the establishment of so called point of growth, where farmers could receive advice, planting and inoculation material. Dry-farming are distributed in the eastern part of the country. The provinces are actually too remote from each other thus it became necessary to create at least one “point of growth” in each of the provinces. In line with the strategy each point of growth is run by a farmer at its land under tenure. The farmer must be ready to take over the economic responsibility over the point of growth and to provide consultancy / advisory service for interested farmers in the region or even the province.
A point of growth has to provide:
- Collection of pistachio varieties. A variety of pistachios aims to hold and protect the existing selected gene pool at different places and to be able to provide planting material on certain demands. It reduces the risk of loss from fire, minimizes the risk of pests and diseases with a plants population. The farmer moreover is able to expand its collection by doing own selections;
- Mother plantation. Mother plantations aim to function as the source of inoculation material (cutting with buds) of a particular pistachio variety. A mother plantation has only to provide varieties which are most suitable for specific local conditions in the province;
- Pilot site of industrial plantations. They need to provide best practice demonstration with different soil preparation techniques and additional plantation utilisation depending on specifics of land (dense or strip plowing, arable or bulldozer terraces, grounds, watering infrastructure, -management and –know-how), steepness and slope exposition, layout charts a.s.o.;
- Advisory center. Provision and maintenance of building that meets minimum requirements to deliver advisory services to farmers on specific demands. The point of growth thus provides opportunity to combine the theory of pistachio growing with practical demonstration.
Mother plantation in Gallyaaral district, Djizak province.
