VIII.8. EARLY OBSERVATIONS ON AFGHAN CROPS

Comparing observations in 2002 with notes made by the British botanist James Aitchison more than a hundred years ago, it is remarkable that wheat farmers were apparently more market-oriented then than now. Aitchison observed one kind of barley grown for fodder and another grown as a food crop. Today, in central Afghanistan at least, only instances of barley grown as a livestock fodder crop were encountered. Aitchison observed a near absence of rye in barley fields. This suggests that farmers may have had the capacity to remove rye when motivated to do so. In May 2002, rice from Pakistan was cheaper than wheat in markets in Kabul province.

With respect to volunteer rye, Aitchison reported

In May, 2002, a wheat field on the southern outskirts of Kabul was observed to be about 40% rye, and this is a common condition.

The Russian plant geographer, Nicolai Vavilov, identified Afghanistan as the third most important center of origin of domestic crops in the world (Vavilov, 1929). As a result of the diversity of land races he collected, Vavilov identified Afghanistan was a center of origin for wheat, barley, chickpea, and peas. However, it is perhaps debatable what portion of the crop biodiversity collected by Vavilov in the 1920's was due to selection by generations of farmers and what portion was more derivative of centuries of "genetic drift" within the many compartmentalized valleys that characterize much of the Afghan landscape

It is not known what proportion of these earlier-sampled land races are still grown today. A large number of accessions are recorded in the USDA Germplasm Resources Information Network database (USDA GRIN) for Triticum, Cicer, and Hordeum from Afghanistan. For Cicer and Hordeum, wild relatives of the same species have been collected; the presence of wild relatives may have been a factor in generating varietal diversity in these crops. Instances of wild relatives of wheat (not using the taxum, triticum) are also recorded in USDA-GRIN for Afghanistan.

William Griffith's writing on travels in Afghanistan in 1838-39 shows a diverse agriculture of a large number of crops. Perhaps most curious is his observation of oat crops in Bamiyan whose grain had completely shattered before harvest had begun. He asks whether local farmers could be growing oats for the straw only? Aitchison, half a century later, lists only wild oats (Avena fatua) growing in western Afghanistan. Similarly, Vavilov in the mid-1920's did not see domestic oats, only the wild weedy relative. Both describe volunteer rye as a highly prevalent weed in wheat. These raise the question as to whether Afghan farmers are very bad at removing weedy admixtures from their crops or whether the straw alone of wild oats and volunteer rye is a forage that does not lose a valuable portion of the nutrients as shattered seed?

On observations in the Kabul area, Vavilov and Bukinich wrote: "At the moment of harvest, the soil surface of the wheat fields is not infrequently covered with innumerable spikelets of this brittle rye, which near Kabul are brushed off before preparing the field for another crop" (Vavilov & Bukinich, 1929. p. 569). It is not clear whether this brittle rye seed was swept from the field to (a) collect a foodstuff, (b) collect seed, or (c) simply rid the field of a noxious weed seed.

Vavilov considered this rye to be more of a progenitor of domestic rye than a perennial mountain rye found in some other countries, that had previously been considered as a leading candidate as a wild relative of domestic rye. He and Bukinich named the weedy Afghan rye Secale cereale var. afghanicum (Vavilov & Bukinich, 1929. p. 569). They wrote, "Great quantities of this brittle weed rye are admixed to the crops of winter wheat in the districts of Kabul, Charikar, near Herat, Kalat. …[it] can be more rightfully regarded as the progenitor of rye"(p. 570).

But they also wrote in the same study, "At an elevation of 2300-2500 m. winter rye supplants wheat and becomes an independent crop." This English translation, at least, is rather confusing. Is the rye being grown at higher altitudes not a "brittle weed rye" but a bona fide domestic crop with a firmer panicle? Or was the rye that Vavilov and Bukinich saw at lower altitudes simply earlier maturing than the wheat it was growing with and thus prone to shattering due to its over-maturity? If Vavilov had really thought the "brittle weed rye" to be a progenitor of domestic rye, he nonetheless considered it a subspecies or variant of Secale cereale rather than a different species. Perhaps the upland rye fields were also highly shattering similar to the completely shattered oat crop that Griffith described at Bamiyan in 1839, apparently being grown for its straw alone?

Perhaps taxonomy helps to clarify this issue. All 36 rye accessions from Afghanistan recorded in the USDA-GRIN database are classified as landraces with the taxonomy, Secale cereale subsp. cereale POACEAE. None is classified as "wild material." If Vavilov, Bukinich, and Griffith all witnessed Afghan farmers struggling to "tame" unruly plant material that was highly prone to shattering, why is it that more stable rye and oat varieties from other countries have never been adopted by Afghan farmers? Could it be that no one has thought to test improved rye or oats? Or that Afghan farmers are only interested in straw production of these crops?

In any case, Vavilov was impressed to find in Afghanistan 110 varieties of wheat and a progenitor of rye. He concluded on the basis of his survey that Afghanistan was the third most important center of origin of domestic crops in the world (Vavilov, 1949). Today the Vavilov Institute in Moscow lists 1,720 plant accessions from Afghanistan. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's GRIN database lists 1,892 accessions of Triticum alone from Afghanistan.