Seed systems development
Organized seed production systems for improved crop varieties are lacking in the southeastern Anatolia region. Under the GAP project, ICARDA’s Seed Unit provided technical support for seed system development aimed at devising alternative ways of introducing new barley, chickpea, and lentil varieties not currently handled by the formal sector.

Organized seed production systems for improved crop varieties are lacking in the southeastern Anatolia region. Under the GAP project, ICARDA’s Seed Unit provided technical support for seed system development aimed at devising alternative ways of introducing new barley, chickpea, and lentil varieties not currently handled by the formal sector.

GAP provided financial support for the establishment of a seed center at Dicle University in order to improve the availability of seed to farmers. The ICARDA Seed Unit provided technical support for the establishment, operation and management of the seed processing facilities, and development of human resources at the Center. Dicle University obtained foundation seed from SARI for multiplication with contract farmers under irrigation. The University has government permission to produce and sell certified seed like any other seed enterprise in Turkey, and produced large quantities of high quality seed.

GAP provided financial support for the establishment of a seed center at Dicle University in order to improve the availability of seed to farmers. The ICARDA Seed Unit provided technical support for the establishment, operation and management of the seed processing facilities, and development of human resources at the Center. Dicle University obtained foundation seed from SARI for multiplication with contract farmers under irrigation. The University has government permission to produce and sell certified seed like any other seed enterprise in Turkey, and produced large quantities of high quality seed.


Improvement of natural pastures
Natural resources in the GAP region have been rapidly degrading over the past 50 years due to a huge increase in human and animal populations. Vegetation cover is low, and unpalatable species are dominant because of the disappearance of several species palatable to small ruminants. The eroded soil is shallow, infertile, white, and with calcareous marl. The land needs to be rehabilitated through proper management, which should include allowing local communities some access to the improved natural resources without sacrificing ecological values.

Proper management of natural resources requires a proper qualitative and quantitative inventory of the socio-economy, vegetation, and soil, including current land use. In June 2000, GAP and ICARDA agreed to monitor rangeland and biodiversity in a pilot project in Kuyulu. The objectives were to provide information to support future land improvement and rangeland management, establish a reference vegetation map to monitor land use changes, document current land use and carrying capacity, and assist in erosion control.

About 25% of the total land area in southeastern Anatolia is at risk of water and wind erosion.

Twenty hectares of improved rangeland on flat terrain were established. The most commonly used perennial legume was Onobrychis sativa, a sanfoin native to Turkey. Several unexpected plant species were identified and collected. Protection of the research area gave many species the chance to regenerate. Six vegetation types with 238 species from 38 families were recorded in the 300 ha fenced area. Forty-eight per cent of these were rated as highly palatable, 35% had low palatability, and 17% were poisonous to livestock.

Geospatial data sets, which included landforms and land use/land cover, were generated from the data collected. The vegetation data set was further classified according to the total biomass, plant species, and vegetation type. The sampling sites for vegetation and soil, and locations of villages where socio-economic data were collected, were also classified.

Table 2. Ground habit and number of species in the six vegetation types
Vegetation type	Number of species
Number of species	5
Perennial shrubs	28 (including 4 legume species)
Biennial shrubs	1
Annual herbs	127 (including 30 legumes and 28 grasses)
Perennial herbs	71 (including 10 legumes and 11 grasses)
Biennial herbs	6

Rangeland rehabilitation
ICARDA provided more than 500 kg of annual forage legume seeds and about 100 kg of fodder shrubs seeds for the rehabilitation of rangelands at Kuyulu. A herbarium with 200 species was established at the GAP Urfa station. More than 1000 seedlings of 20 fodder shrub and 10 grass species were supplied to Harran University to establish a botanical garden.

The cereal-based cropping systems were diversified through the integration of feed legumes. About 1–2 ha of common vetch was planted in farmers’ fields in each of the GAP provinces to demonstrate the rotation of vetch with cereals in the harsh environments of southeastern Turkey. The improved vetch varieties provided by ICARDA are helping to reduce erosion, as they cover the soil surface, and livestock spend more time grazing them than the steppe. This will change the marginal and environmentally damaging cropping system into a productive, sustainable, environment-improving crop-livestock system, and increase farmers’ income.

Table 3. Legume and grass species provided for rangeland rehabilitation in the GAP region
Non-legume shrubs	Legume shrubs	Grasses
Atriplex canescens	Bituminaria bituminosa	Agropyron cristatum
A. halimus	Colutea istria	A. elongatum
A. halimus-halimus	Coronilla glauca	A. fragile
A. glauca	Medicago arborea	Dactylis glomerata
A. lentiformis	Onobrychis aurantiaca	Eragrostis spp.
A. leucoclada	Onobrychis sativa	Festuca elatior
A. nummularia		Lolium spp.
A. polycarpa	Annual legumes	Oryzopsis miliacea
A. torreyi	Medicago rigidula	Panicum turgidum
A. undulata	M. radiata	Phalaris tuberosa
Kochia prostrata	Trifolium campestre
Kochia prostrata	T. pilulare
Artemisia herba-alba	T. purpureum
	T. speciosum

Improvement of small ruminant productivity

GAP farmers and researchers learn how to manufacture feed blocks.

The major factor affecting small ruminant productivity in the dry areas is the shortage of good quality feed resources that can meet the nutritional requirements of animals. Small ruminants depend mainly on poor quality forages and cereal crop residues for a considerable part of the year. However, large quantities of good quality agricultural and agro-industrial byproducts such as sugar beet pulp, molasses, olive cake, sesame cake, sunflower cake, groundnut cake, tomato pulp, citrus pulp, etc, are available, but are not efficiently used in feeding systems.

ICARDA worked with researchers, extension personnel, and farmers in the GAP region to improve small ruminant productivity through improvements in feed resources to enable them to cope with critical feed shortages. Training courses, field days, and on-farm demonstrations were conducted on new feeding technologies such as the use of feed blocks, urea-treated straw, and strategic feeding to improve small ruminant productivity and milk yield.

Feed blocks now provide supplementery feed sources for sheep in the GAP region.

The feed blocks technology is simple, cheap, and does not require sophisticated equipment. Feed blocks were manufactured with locally available agricultural byproducts, thus promoting their utilization in feeding systems. The technology has proved to be one of the most efficient methods of using urea as a source of nitrogen and a strategic way of supplementing feed to improve small ruminant performance.

Mucuna produced high biomass but failed to produce seed under southeastern Anatolia conditions.

Introduction of Mucuna
GAP researchers expressed interest in trying Mucuna (velvet beans) to solve the problem of feed shortages in the region. ICARDA secured short duration species of Mucuna from the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, Nigeria, for introduction into the system. Unfortunately, the species produced high biomass but failed to produce seed. Further trials with different agronomic practices, e.g., changes in sowing date, did not produce useful results. Researchers therefore concluded that Mucuna is a short-day plant and is not suitable for seed production in the long-day summer conditions found in the GAP region.