ICARDA Caravan 6

ICARDA gets goats
CARDA has acquired 10 female Shami goats. Supplied by Syria's Livestock Research Department, which is part of the Directorate of Agricultural Scientific Research, they will soon be joined by another 10 does and two males. 
        In Syria, there is only about one goat for every 10-12 sheep and these are mostly found in the hilly west and arable areas. Sheep dominate the steppe lands. In fact, there are more sheep than goats in the WANA region as a whole with a ratio of 1:3. So why does ICARDA wish to work on goats?
        They are efficient milk producers; they can even rival dairy cows.
        Goats, particularly Shami goats, are better adapted to the harsh climate, the diet and local diseases and still produce a substantial amount of milk under these conditions.

Shami goats (also known as Damascus goats)               are famous in the region for their high milk production--they can yield several hundred liters of milk in a lactation period. This, and their higher

twinning rate and kidding throughout the year, makes them popular with many farmers who wish to have milk for the family.
        ICARDA wants to see just how well goats with different genetic potentials for milk production perform with feeds with varying nutritional content.
        The results will be compared with data from similar trials conducted at Tel Hadya on Awassi sheep and with

Wild peas solve 1,000-year-old mystery (maybe)
At the end of April a team from ICARDA's Pasture, Forage and Livestock Program mounted a short expedition into the Syrian steppe to ground-truth several test zones on their vegetation map.
        This they did, with great success, using geo-referenced satellite images on a portable computer.
But they also discovered some unexpected biodiversity; a discovery that may help solve the mystery of ancient civilizations.
        The team--Dr Gus Gintzburger,Nabil Battikha and Walid Shaar of ICARDA's Natural Resources Management Program, accompanied by Dr Francoise Debaine (GIS-RS Unit Nantes University, France) and Dr R. Jaubert (IUED, Geneva, Switzerland)--collected numerous plant specimens for ICARDA's herbarium from the 130-200 mm rainfall zones south of Esseryeh.
        On the top of one of the many rocky basaltic hills not easily accessible to sheep or goats, they found a wild pea which could be Pisum elathius Bieb. (or possibly Pisum fulvum Sibth. et Sm. in Mouterde 1966) and a Lathyrus sp. They intend to go back to collect some seeds soon.

        These discoveries could be a clue to a thousand-year mystery: What kind of vegetation and forage sustained the many 15-1800-year-old  Roman and Byzantine settlements and large 'livestock' farms with huge stone built enclosures in the 130-180 mm Esseryeh region, in what is now such a hostile environment?
        Parts of the Middle East contain spectacular ruined towns and Byzantine villages (known in Syria as the "dead cities"), sometimes in areas that are clearly not able to support much farming activity today. Maybe the past will provide some clues to the future...