Jellin Research Station
Site and climate:
It is located in the south of Syria, in the governorate of Dara’a, about 35 km away from the west of Dara’a and 110 km away from the south of Damascus. Its total area is 55 ha, with an altitude of 425 m above the sea. Its soil is clay, originally basalt, alkaline-tending and poor with organic matter. Its rainfall average is 425 mm distributed among winter, spring and autumn seasons.
Objective:
Establish a live gene bank for environment stress-tolerant fruit trees, utilize it in achieving the optimal use of lands in Arab arid and semi-arid areas and develop the knowledge of human resources in this field.
Infrastructure:
- 494 entries of tree varieties and lines for the arid and semi-arid areas distributed as the following:
- 100 entries of olive varieties.
- 25 entries of pistachio varieties.
- 168 entries of fig varieties.
- 93 entries of grape varieties.
- 108 entries of almond varieties.
- The gene bank includes 6400 trees, a field for superior tree varieties and a field for wild varieties to conserve and protect them from extinction.
- Administrative offices and necessary equipment and supplies for tree services and experiment implementation.
Activities:
- Study the morphological, biological and ecological characteristics and phonological stages of the fruit tree varieties and resources that are appropriate to arid areas, and characterize and fix their
- Evaluate drought-tolerant varieties and lines and identify their productive capacity and product’s quality.
- Conserve and protect fruit tree varieties and lines appropriate to arid and semi-arid areas, particularly the wild ones, control their extinction, identify the methodology of utilizing their good traits and introduce them into the cultivation rotation of fruit trees.
- Transfer appropriate fruit tree genetic resources to the Arab countries aiming at establishing breeding fields and producing seedlings.
