Almond plantations in bare-degraded forest and treasure lands: achievements and failures.

摘要

Turkey has approximately 21.5 million hectares forest area and about 50% of it is productive, and the rest is degraded or unproductive. Rehabilitation or afforestation has been a continuing activity by the state on these lands. However, there are some marginal bare or degraded lands called free lands from forestlands and treasury. Since 1986, these lands have been rented and loaned to villagers and private sector for 10-49 years with the objective of improving rural economy by increasing income of villagers by growing crops. Certain forest or tree fruit species are allowed to be planted in these lands. The most preferred tree fruit species is almond which covers 18,846.7 ha land. Orchard layouts, topography, slope, soil depth, presence of stones, water availability, etc. vary from land to land. Some orchards come into bearing while a few failed because these lands have usually marginal soil that are somewhat difficult to manage in addition to unsuitable land/climate preferences and/or lack of regular horticultural practices which are mostly not covered by forest management techniques. In Turkey, the number of almond plantations has been increasing in both agricultural lands and degraded free lands within forests or treasure lands recently. Thus, almond production has been increasing and it appears that this increase will continue to rise in the near future.