BACK IN PRODUCTION

Waikato Independent, Volume XLIII, Issue 6035, 21 October 1946, Page 7

BACK IN PRODUCTION

DESERT IN PERSIA OIL COMPANY'S WORK According to advice recently received, the efforts of the AngloIranian Oil Company to convert to * productivity desert land at Abadan, , site of the company’s huge refinery -at the head of the Persian Gulf, are meeting with considerable success. With a population of some 150,000 Abadan is situated on an island 40 ... miles in length and varying from one to 12 miles in width. The island forms the estuary of two rivers, and consists mainly of mud flats, silt deposited by suceeding tides throughout the ages with the result that the “soil” is highly impregnated with salt, which requires to be removed before any form of cultivation is possible. Tests showed the salt content of the top soil, to a depth of two feet, to be about 100 tons per acre. To treat the area necessary to provide the vegetable requirements for the population of 150,000 and to meet the fodder needs of the company’s considerable dairy herd, will take several years, but the results obtained on the initial 60 acres are most encouraging. The area was divided into plots each about 300 by 150 feet by deep drainage channels, and water, pumped on to the plots at the rate of some 350,000 gallons per day. Percolating through the soil, the water carries away the salt, and by this method the plots are gradually leached of their salt content. After the first leaching, despite a liberal application of manure, nothing, not even weeds of any description, would germinate in the bad plots.

In other plots germination was delayed (as much as six weeks foxoats) and when the plants did appear they were in small, dispersed patches, spindly and sickly, and soon stopped growing. In some areas seeds would germinate practically over the whole plot, though germination was still slower than normal. The resulting plants, however, were still sickly and died in patches. After a second leaching, germination was normal, but there were great differences in development in different plots. ‘On those not manured even the best gave only an indifferent cropj the worst had to be left for grazing. Manured plots were satisfactory, though they included some of the worst land. Lucerne had furnished a fair first cut and the second crop compares well with any in the sweet soil area. Some

land near the drainage channels is showing better growth than any in the palm belt. The growing of Egyptian clover has so far been a failure, because of its susceptibility to salt, but there are indications that it will later be possible to include this clover in the rotation.