A visit to ICARDA

direct drilled lentils

 I was in Aleppo to visit ICARDA (International Centre for Agriculture Research in Dry Areas) and pay a visit to Dr Manzoor Qadir who has some expertise in irrigation and salinity. He offered to show me around the area to see some saline water being used. In this case, some recycled water from the local treatment plant as well as some ground water use. Although Manzoor and I spoke at some length about saline irrigation, he got snowed under with commitments and he was unable to be my guide for our farm visits.
My first day was a look around ICARDA's 1000 ha property. As a model farm, it is quite something with trials of many descriptions going on. ICARDA's focus is getting more farmers practising conservation farming with the use of zero or minimal till. ICARDA encouraged local manufacturers to modify and eventually build a direct drill that would suit the area.

Syrian built minimum till seeder developed with the help of ICARDA and local engineers