Wheat production and breeding in Israel from 1948 to 2002. A review
2004
Atsmon, S.Y. | Schwarzbach, E.
The sown wheat acreage in Israel increased from less than 40,000 ha in 1948 to more than 100,000 ha in the seventies and has declined slightly since that time. About 3/4 of the crop are grown in the central part of the country, mostly rainfed, with precipitation of 250-500 mm. Since the fifties about 25 cultivars have been released. Breeding considerably increased the yielding potential of cultivars. The recent top cultivar Galil yields about twice as much as cv. Florence Aurore, the leading cultivar in 1970. The national average grain yield rose from 900 kg/ha in 1948 to recently 2.3 t/ha. The highest on-farm yields under favourable conditions are about 9 t/ha. An increasing proportion of the wheat acreage is used for silage, reaching now more than 25 %. The domestic production covered originally only about 12 % of the consumption, reaching 47 % in the decade 1970-1979, but declined again due to the population growth.
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