'Start up nation' Israel now grows gold in the desert

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Press Trust of India Jerusalem
Last Updated : Aug 23 2015 | 11:28 AM IST
The tiny country of Israel is woefully short of cultivable land and fresh water, yet today using modern scientific tools, it has literally been able to bloom gold in the hot Negev Desert.
More crop per drop is the motto for this nation often also called a 'start up' nation.
The country pioneered the drip irrigation technology there by literally providing the roots of plants just the right quantity of water drop by drop, unlike the wasteful flooding technique we see in India.
In most agricultural fields of Israel, thin black pipes are laid out like a giant spider's web, from tiny holes water is literally supplied directly to the root tips. The water flow is controlled by computers that constantly monitor the health of the fields.
Experts say in Israel, almost no fresh water is allowed to go waste, it is recycled several times and most of the agriculture farms in the country are irrigated using treated municipal wastewater.
A water expert Dr Jack Gilron, from the Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research, Sede Boqer, Israel said, "The country is very water scarce within the last 15 years we drought proofed the country using enough sea water desalination to take care of two-thirds of our domestic needs, we recycle seventy percent of our municipal waste water for agriculture. Between those two actions we have protected our country from drought."
If that was not sufficient, the agriculture scientists have pioneered the art of precision farming. High value crops are grown inside sophisticated climate controlled plastic green houses; here everything is controlled using computers.
Sensors detect the presence of water in the soil and sensors are placed even inside the plants as well to see if they are getting water starved. Just the right quantity of water is provided to the plants and farmers can monitor the level of water stress of the plants using a mobile app on their smart phones.
Even the plants are custom designed and trained so that they give the best yield, take the case of tomatoes they are grown in long rows with plants as tall as 2 meters and are held up using wires that guide the development of the plants so that they don't lodge when the heavy fruits weigh them down.

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First Published: Aug 23 2015 | 11:28 AM IST