The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has created two nurseries and a demonstration site to promote the implementation of the National Forest Program in Turkmenistan, according to a press release of the organization.

Nurseries, with an area of 1 hectare each, were built on the production sites of the Baharden and Dashoguz forestry farms, and a demonstration plot of 3 hectares was built on the basis of the educational farm of the Turkmen Agricultural University named after S.A. Niyazov (TAU).

Various types of planting material will be grown in nurseries: seedlings and seedlings of fruit, deciduous, coniferous, desert and other trees, shrubs and semi-shrubs, and the demonstration site will be designed for various agro-reclamation measures to reduce the level of secondary salinization using modern methods of growing salt-resistant and drought-resistant crops.

For the rational management of water resources, drip irrigation systems with large water tanks are installed in nurseries and on the demonstration site.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Protection of Turkmenistan has purchased 25 thousand seedlings of fruit and berry crops for the expansion of gardening territories. In particular, it is planned to grow seedlings of salt-resistant and drought-resistant fruit crops (quince, loch, unabi) as well as other crops (safflower, quinoa, alfalfa, barley, etc.), allowing to reduce the level of salinity and increase the fertility of the land.

It is planned to organize scientific work at the demonstration site of the TAU using modern field equipment for conducting express analysis of soils to solve problems of agronomic control and increase their fertility. It is also planned to conduct practical field training sessions here.

The initiative was implemented within the framework of the FAO and the Global Environment Facility GEF project "Integrated Management of natural resources in drought-prone and salinized agricultural landscapes of Central Asia and Turkey" (ISCAUSR-2).

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