Fruits in the North of Barfirat

Ferat Damiroghlou

The north of Barfirat is famous for its vineyards. Regions like Merdin and Botan are as good as Barfirat regions for their vineyards but possess the eastern Euphrates River's climate conditions and soil quality. There is a kind of high-quality vine tree that now can be found in other parts of the world too, such as "Bugazkara" and "Okuzgozu" vine trees that are suitable for making high-quality wine.

The "Bugazkara" vine tree is mostly planted and grown in "Chermoug, Chongush, Arkhani, Piran, and Madan". However, the "Okuzgozu" vine tree can grow much better in Alaziz city and its northern areas. A high-quality wine is made of these two types of vine trees. "Bogazkara" vine has a sour and bitter taste and when it is mixed with 30 percent of "Okuzgozu", it gets a much better taste.

In addition to these kinds of grapes, the sweet grapes of Chermoug and Arkhani called Mazroma are also very famous. Every Autumn people look for Mazroma grapes. Until the late 1990s, this kind of grapes could be found in every neighborhood in Diyarbakir in October but towards the 2000s this kind of grapes became scarce. The reasons for the scarcity of grapes are various. One of them is "Phylloxera" disease which is a type of pest that is scattered in the region. This kind of pest penetrates the plants' roots, lays their eggs inside the roots, and then goes to the top part of the plant. This will cause the plant to get dry due to a lack of water and minerals being transferred to its branches. The fruit will get rotten or dried.

In the beginning, the people of this area could not figure out why their vine products decreased or dried out. Everybody believed a kind of cancer had spread among the vine trees making the fruit dry out. Some agriculture engineers knew it was not cancer but the villagers did not trust them. When I began to plant vine trees, I explained to the people that phylloxera could not be deteriorated by chemical fertilizers, thus the only way is to plant American vine trees because this kind of pest will not penetrate its roots. In order to make the villagers believe the fact that phylloxera dries out the vine trees, I took some videos and photos of phylloxera and they finally believed me after a decade. In 2010, the Mazrona grapes could not be found. It was very scarce this year.

Another reason for the scarcity of grapes is that after the North War, the villagers of this area moved from their villages and towns and those who remained in their lands became guards and officers willingly or not (they served the government). The government gives them a salary and weapons; now this is how they live. Those who left their villages could not go back to their vineyards again due to the oppression of the authorities. Those who remained in the village did not care for the vineyards because they had a salary now. The culture and knowledge of agriculture that had been transferred from one generation to the next vanished gradually and did not reach the new generations.

Since "Bugazkara", "Okuzgozu" and "Mazrona" vines can be sold and since Mazrona is exported to Baztiq, Dams, Halaw, and Mashloury so they are planted more than other kinds but in addition to this, grapes can be found for daily consumption. These kinds of fruit will fade away gradually. "Tahlik" grapes are very useful for the brain. "Tahnabi, Avdery, Muruvat, Ganj Mohammad, Rashk, Sor, Banki, and Qzlbanki" are consumed for daily use. The first harvest of Tahnabi grapes is in July and later "Banki, Qzlbanki, Muruvat, Ganj Mohammad, and Rashk" grapes will be harvested so that in summer and Autumn people can have this fruit.    

KURDŞOP
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