Matzuva – The Farm: Spring/Summer 2008 – A SHAVUOT SPECIAL

(see Max’s photos of the festival celebration at Matzuva)

“I have brought the fruits of my garden full of choice fruits”

(Interview with Johnny, manager of Matzuva’s agricultural branch – Johnny Adjami is a Druze citizen from the village of Yanuch near Maalot. The family has been associated with Matzuva for many years and following the passing of Yossele Goren ז"ל it was a natural progression that his deputy Johnny would assume the job of Agricultural Manager. The Agricultural Branch combines all the previous fruit branches into one efficient branch using the mobility and expertise of its personnel to cover all the needs of this large economic branch. The agricultural branch is presently managed for Matzuva by Miluot, Matzuva’s main creditor and the economic arm of the Western Galilee kibbutzim and moshavim) - Baruch

Note: 1 Dunam = 0.2224 acres or 900 square meters

As we all know from time spent at Matzuva it’s a fruit farm of bananas, persimmon, avocado, mango, lychee, pomegranates, citrus and “Or” mandarin

Citrus: At the moment we have only mandarin with the uneconomic pomelo groves being uprooted. We are now in the process of planting a further 40 dunam (approx. 10 acres) of mandarin replacing a mango grove.

Pomegranates: This is the second year since turning this grove into a commercial crop. From the 200 dunam we can see a good amount of fruit that is to be picked from October onwards. Growing this fruit has increased significantly in Israel and is earmarked for export. We are the first farm to grow this fruit and now Kibbutz Eilon has followed suit. The fruit is grown with minimum investment and self-reproduces. The grove has been planted in ground unsuitable for other plants and the fruit is, of course, a local Land of Israel fruit (one of the seven species of the Bible). It’s very strong and requires little irrigation. The packing station is the mango shed near the Matzuva cemetery but it will revert to being a chicken house once again next year. The fruit is marketed in Europe through Agrexco and we are optimistic we will be able to develop it economically.

Mango: This is an old plantation at Matzuva and the northernmost in Israel. Experts said it would never succeed in this ‘coldish’ area. We have produced to the maximum possible despite it being unsuitable climatically with the climate influencing yields to the tune of 90%. Unfortunately, we can’t do much about that! We have had a lot of ups and downs with our mango being the only producers in the entire coastal strip north of Ashdod (south of Tel Aviv). The natural area for mango is the Jordan valley and we have checked the possibility of putting the plantation under netting, which would be too expensive and would cause us to lose our position as the last plantation to market mango in Israel due to the late ripening of the fruit. Amazingly, the stress the cold has caused the trees has produced a lot of blossoms signalling an especially bumper harvest of the “Maya” variety. We are holding on with hope in our hearts for continued success with our mango.

Persimmon: This is a good fruit exclusively bound for export – it quite strong although we are thinking in terms of covering the plantation with netting. After the Hebrew fallow-year we plan to plant 70 dunam replacing bananas in the Shlomi area to the north. The ripening process is performed at the local packing station before being exported. We experimented ourselves with ripening second-grade persimmon on the kibbutz and then marketing it in Israel – this experiment has succeeded.

Bananas: During the last three decades the banana plantation has been the main fruit branch at Matzuva. It’s a steady and good branch and is now being converted fully into a plantation entirely under netting. Bananas under netting has proved to be an indisputable success improving yields, protecting the fruit and enabling Matzuva to continue the banana growing in any particular field for 12-13 years as opposed to a previous maximum of 7-8 years. The netting protects the trees from hail and winds (prevalent to the area) and greatly improves their ability to survive frost. This year we had a lot of cold days and nights with temperatures of 1^oC and -1^oC affecting the fruit but in comparison to our neighbours to the south we came out of it better than others. Our southern plantation (1997-8) was worst hit but has been saved although next year we’ll have less fruit. Each year we increase our banana plantation by 50-80 dunam with our ability to save water thanks to the netting. This year the price of bananas has risen due to the frost and this has been to our advantage in marketing. The price is now around 4 new shekels/kilo (NIS.3.42=$1).

**Aaron Meir

Avocado: The size of this branch has increased significantly during the last few years. Once the avocado branch had 600 – 700 dunam but by 2004 it had dwindled to 160 dunam due to water restrictions. Today we have a sizable 400 dunam and we have returned to growing the Haas variety that is in demand in Europe despite it being a difficult variety to grow. We irrigate with pure water as using sewage water might seep into the aquifer

Lychee (Litchi chinensis): Following a bumper harvest last year we prepared for considerably less fruit this year but it turns out that there will also be a lot of fruit this year. There is no proven scientific evidence but it looks like the frost played its part in the size of the yield. Trees suffering from distress tend to blossom and develop fruit.

What interest us are the yield and not the look of the tree. This has also been the case with avocado trees.

The lychee plantation is only 30 dunam in size and if the yield is good so much the better.

** [Matzuva member Aaron Meir, an ex-Ulpan student, is the hired manager of the Bet

HaEmek and Yehiam banana plantations].