Citrus fruit trees are of the most important cultivated fruit trees in Syria, in the terms of economic, trade, and food. That is due to their limited planting in certain regions in addition to the great demand on the consumption of their fruits. The Syrian government sought in recent years to achieve self-sufficiency and export the surplus of production by:
1. Focusing on increasing the current productivity per area unit to reach 40 tons/hectare (see Table 9) through the provision of the optimum care for the citrus orchards and support of farmers to submit the different agricultural services correctly.
13 In 2004, the Syrian citrus production was about 844.1 thousand tons. It accounted for about 0.8% of citrus fruits produced globally.
14 2. Increasing the area which is planted with citrus fruits to 50.000 hectares (Table 5), which is the arable area of citrus fruit after completion the establishment of irrigation canals on dams14 and the reclamation areas of the wetlands.
2.3.1 Location of production, area and number of citrus fruit trees
Citrus fruit production is concentrated in two governorates, Lattakia and Tartous, where it grows on the coastal plain and on the lower slopes of the coastal hills up to 150 meters over the sea level (the Agro Ecological zone 1).
In 2009, Lattakia and Tartous accounted, respectively, for approximately 82% and 17% of total citrus production, 77% and 20% of the total area cultivated with citrus fruit trees, 74%
and 22% of total citrus trees numbers. Small quantities of citrus fruit are also produced commercially in small areas in Homs, Idlib, Dar’a, Deir Ezzor, Hama and Al Ghab (Table 4).
Table 4: Area, production, and number of citrus trees by governorate for 2009 (Area: Hectare, Production: M. T., Number of Trees: Per Thousand) Item Production
Number of Trees
Area Fruit Bearing Total
Sweida 0 0 0 0
Dar’a 1578 105.5 111.4 264
Quneitra 0 0 0 0
Damascus 29 2.1 2.4 8
Homs 8926 194 215.2 605
Hama 431 45.3 50.5 63
Ghab 987 53,7 57.9 16
Idleb 2892 47.2 49 166
Tartous 185139 2476.4 2805.6 7675
Lattakia 892143 8319.6 9497.6 29525
Aleppo 14 0.5 0.5 5
Al-Raqqa 119 3.8 10.9 22
Dair-Ezzor 364 23.4 35.9 35
Al-Hassakah 0 0 0 0
Total 1092622 11271.5 12836.9 38383
Source:Elaborated from (AASA, 2010).
14 These dams were built in the regions of citrus fruit cultivation.
15 In 2009, the total area planted with fruit trees was 977,815 hectares, accounted 17.3% of total cultivated lands. Of which 38,383 hectares were planted with citrus fruit and accounted 3.9%
of the total planted fruit trees. Respectively, for nearly 17%, 59%, and 24% of the total citrus fruit areas were planted with lemon, orange and other citrus fruit types15 (Table 5).
Table 5: Total cultivated area and the total area of fruit trees, total citrus fruit, orange, lemon and other citrus types (2000-2009), (Area: in hectare) Item
Source: Own table based on (AASA, 2010).
According to Citrus Board Directorate in Syria, there is a governmental plan to expand the area planted with citrus, 500 hectare in average per annum. This plan depends on:
1. Renewal and replacement of the old orchards planted with citrus fruit trees with a new one.
2. Cultivation of citrus fruit trees in any farmland which is appropriate technically and climatically for citrus fruits growing. This included, for example, the expansion of the arable lands in Homs and Dar’a provinces; however, the yield per hectare will be low.
Figure 3 shows that the area planted with orange and lemon increased significantly between 2000 and 2009, while the areas planted with other citrus fruit types like grapefruit and
15 Other citrus fruit refer to grapefruit, mandarin and other citrus fruit types except orange and lemon.
16 mandarin declined slightly during 2000 and 2003, and then began to increase very slightly until 2009.
Figure 3: Total cultivated area of citrus trees, orange, lemon and other citrus trees (2000-2009); (Area: Hectare)
Source: Own figure based on Table 5.
In 2009, the total number of citrus fruits trees was 12.84 million, of which approximately 11.27 million trees were in fruit. Almost 57% of the total trees planted with citrus fruit comprise various varieties of oranges, 87% of them were in fruit bearing. 18% of total citrus fruit trees comprise lemon, 87% of them in fruit bearing and 25% of total citrus fruit trees included grapefruit, mandarin and other citrus fruits types, of them 89% were in fruit bearing (Table 6).
Figure 4 shows that the number of orange and lemon trees, which were in the fruit bearing, increased significantly during 2000 and 2009, while the number of grapefruit, mandarin and other citrus fruit types (in fruit breading) declined slightly during 2000 and 2003, and then began to increase very slightly up to 2009. This is due to farmers switching into lemon in response to high domestic market prices and the introduction of a new, high-yielding disease-resistant variety. High yielding varieties introduced from abroad have progressively replaced local varieties which, in the case of oranges, are small in size, high in acidity, contain large numbers of seeds, and are relatively low yielding. Domestic consumers now prefer imported
0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000 35000 40000
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
Total Citrus Trees Area Total Lemon Trees Area Total Orange Trees Area Total Other Citrus Trees Area
17 varieties such as Valencia. All the present varieties being distributed by the Citrus Board are based on imported stock. Source countries include California, Spain, Corsica and Sicily16 . Table 6: Number of citrus fruit trees and its types (2000-2009);
(number of trees: per thousand)
Item
Number of Citrus fruit Trees
Number of Lemon Trees
Number of Orange Trees
Number of Other Citrus Trees
Total Fruit
Bearing Total Fruit
Bearing Total Fruit
Bearing Total Fruit
Bearing
2000 10793 8129,8 1305,3 909,3 5389,7 4042,2 4074,3 3162,9 2001 10904 8410,5 1329,1 991,9 5458,1 4118 4093,1 3284,4 2002 9818,9 8592,5 1437,9 1209 5155,2 4467,2 3225,8 2916,3 2003 9966 8920,9 1768,4 1520,1 5427,2 4831,5 2770,4 2569,3 2004 10599,3 9443 1911 1676,1 5877,6 5093,4 2810,7 2673,5 2005 10817 9488 1974,1 1693,6 6027,2 5183,8 2815,6 2611,2 2006 11455,7 9988,3 2079 1800,9 6514,9 5534,8 2861,7 2652,5 2007 12105,4 10556,9 2154,9 1909,4 6968,9 5940,6 2981,6 2706,9 2008 12507,1 11087,4 2215,8 1941,6 7228,6 6349,1 3062,8 2796,6 2009 12836,9 11271,5 2329,8 2033,9 7322,3 6402,8 3184,8 2834,8
Source: Own table based on (AASA, 2010).
The annual governmental plan of increasing areas cultivated with citrus fruit trees includes cultivation of 200 thousand seedlings of different species and varieties of citrus fruit trees, which enter in fruit bearing after 5 years of planting17.
16 Interview with Ing. agr. Wajih Elmoei, Director of CBD; August 2005.
17 Interview with Ing. agr. Ali Sulaeman, Head of Afforestation and Seedlings Department in the CBD, 2005.
18 Figure 4: Number of citrus fruit trees and its types which are in fruit bearing
(2000-2009); (Number of Trees: per thousand)
Source: Own figure based on Table 6.
2.3.2 Types and varieties of citrus fruit
The types of citrus fruit trees, which are cultivated in Syria, can be divided into four groups:
orange, lemon, mandarin and grapefruit and pomelo (CBD, 2005)18. Orange Group:
1. Navel oranges: Early maturing variety, primarily used for eating, seedless, less juicy