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Grape Vineyard Trellising Project in the Shamali Plain Richard Thwaites, Country Director July 8, 2008 Afghanistan has grown different types of grapes since time immemorial, but farmers have been dissatisfied with their income. Traditional “bush” style of pruning and growing of vines produces low yields of grapes with poor quality. With certain varietals, the production is so poor and income generated so low that it will not cover the cost of production Roots of Peace started to install a few wooden trellising trials during 2005 in the Shamali, a plain to the north of Kabul that was the site of much fighting during the war, and for which Roots of Peace had to engage in Mine Clearance. At first the farmers were resistant to change and questioned the wisdom of cutting so many canes away from their “bush” trained vines. In 2005 we were able to entice 18 farmers to install trellises. In 2006 we surpassed 1,000. In 2007/08 we installed over 1,600 and were limited by funding. The trellis intervention increased the grape production up to 52% during the first year and 108% in the second year. Trellis system of vine cultivation has a positive affects on the quality of grape, berry size, dirt and disease free clusters. In June of this year we were fortunate to host a visit of Heidi Kuhn and Gary Kuhn. The photographs show Heidi and Gary inspecting the results of this work – which is a real story of Mines to Vines! Case Studies “During the war I fought for my home country and after the war again I started to work on land. My friends invested their money on making building and other business. I preferred to invest in agriculture. I started to establish this vineyard (3,000 vines) last year. Now my vines are two years old and every morning I am coming to see my vines grow. I heard RoP is selling the post with 50% subsidy. I started to purchase for all vines, but I did not have enough money. I purchased 1,000 post at first and then whenever I had a bit more cash I tried to purchased more and more. Now I purchased 3,000 post and I installed posts for all vines. It was a good chance [critical time] for my young vines to start growing on these posts. Without this help it was difficult for me to complete the installation of the whole vineyard during this year. Now I am very happy that I got sufficient posts and have been able to trellis my vineyard. Really I enjoyed and I expect my vines will start production next year. Most of my friends who are coming to meet me, find me in my vineyard. They feel how I am happy with my vineyard. Some of my friends say I am a lucky man that I restart working in the field. I also feel proud of my work as a progressive farmer. I am sure that introducing of trellising was a very good program for improving of vineyards in Shamali Plain and I wish this programme should extend for years.” Now he has Taifee, Hossaini, Kandahari and Shondokhani varieties. Any time of the day you can find him either in his house or on his vineyard. Mr. Shams-ul- Haq, Grape Grower in Bagram “Before the installation of post many times I was thinking to take out the vine from the field and plant wheat and other crops on it. When I grafted the vines and install the trellising, the vines produced better and with a bigger cluster. Last year the production was very good and it was quite sufficient for me. In this spring during pruning of my vines a few farmers came and asked me to provide them canes for nurseries. They offered to pay 2 Afs. for each cane. I also encouraged them to establish their own nurseries from my own cutting and I did. I sold the rest of the cuttings to them. This was the new income that I earned from my trellised vineyard”. Although he has only about 0.4 h. of vineyard, he seems happy from his product and he believed every year his income will increase gradually. When we asked him to list any advantages of trellising he mentioned the following points.
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