Hama, Central Syria - Al-Ghab Agricultural Research Center,Hama Governorate, 209 km from Damascus, aims at breeding new species of crops appropriate for the area with a high quality and quantity, in addition to applying technical and field researches in all agricultural domains.
The Centre is also working on the employment of molecular biology techniques to find out wild plants resistant to diseases that affect trees, raise the efficiency of buffalo reproductive, find new fish species in the Orontes basin and protecting endangered species.
Chairman of the Center, Sameer al-Jedawi said the number of the scientific researches published by the center reached to 32, and the scientific papers which were submitted to the local and international scientific conferences and symposiums reached to 31, in addition to 33 workshops in various agricultural fields.
Al-Jedawi pointed out to the Center's participation in defining the best kinds of the imported sugar beet adapting to the winter and autumn seasons.
The Center also studies the phenomenon of low degrees of sweetness in sugar beet and the low manufacturing specifications of its roots.
It is currently conducting allergic test for the most important species of olives cultivated in Syria and grafted by wild species towards wilt disease.
The Center also cooperates with the Syrian Atomic Energy Commission in employing partial biological technologies in searching about wild species which resist the wilt disease.
It contributes to breeding 20 kinds of hard and soft wheat, chickpea and yellow-corn which surpassed the local specie by 50 percent.
The center also defined the natural area of the Syrian Elm, threatened of extinction, and the classification of medical and herbal plants in the area.
The Center, established in 1978, is one of the most important scientific agricultural centers in terms of geographical location.
It is distinguished by its experiments and agricultural crops, as well as by the quality and quantity of the researches annually conducted in the center on wheat, beet, cotton sunflower and corn.
© SANA (Syria Arab News Agency) 2011
