Izmir Metropolitan Municipality continues its efforts to bring olive groves damaged by forest fires back to life. Producers in the fire zones were trained to keep olive trees alive with the right intervention.
Izmir Metropolitan Municipality continues its efforts to revive and treat green areas damaged by the forest fires last August. Izmir Metropolitan Municipality teams are working in four districts affected by the fire. Karşıyaka, Bayraklı, took action after determining that olive groves were severely damaged in field studies conducted in Tire and Bayındır. The Agricultural Services Department began providing training to producers in the region to ensure the proper rehabilitation of olive trees affected by the fire. With the support of the Olive Research Institute, expert agricultural engineers visited rural neighborhoods one by one to provide theoretical and practical training to producers who earn their living from olive cultivation. Information was provided on many subjects such as bringing olive trees back to life, correct intervention and maintenance techniques during the training.
“Great damage was seen in the olive groves”
Izmir Metropolitan Municipality Agricultural Services Department Directorate Agricultural Production and Development Branch Manager Ayşegül Karakoyun Seçgin said that the fire that seriously affected Izmir last August also caused serious damage to the olive groves. Ayşegül Karakoyun Seçgin said, “As the Agricultural Services Department, we formed a technical team and determined the extent of the damage in these areas. We saw serious problems in much larger areas than we expected. We started working on the rehabilitation of the olive groves upon the instructions of our president Cemil Tugay. We are conducting training in these areas with our instructors at the Olive Research Institute. Bayraklı ve Karşıyaka “We are making progress in education activities in four regions,” he said.
“It is difficult to kill the olive”
Dr. Özgür Dursun, an agricultural engineer working at the Olive Research Institute, which provides training to producers, stated that training is very important in the rehabilitation of burned trees and that producers are also very interested. Özgür Dursun also stated that humans cannot easily kill olives and said, “There is a storage organ in the root area of the olive. Many producers call it a radish. The immortality of the olive tree is also related to the presence of the organic compound storage of this radish structure. The more organic compounds the tree has accumulated, the more difficult it is for us to kill those trees from the outside. The upper parts of the olive trees are damaged. If they have been exposed to heat from the outside, we can recover by pruning. Then, a nitrogenous fertilization and balanced nutrition program is applied. However, if the root parts are seriously damaged, we do not have a chance to save those trees. However, even if there is a small area left in the root area, the plant continues to sprout from there. We teach our producers methods on how to graft those sprouts. It is very important for all producers to attend the trainings and apply the information they gain in these trainings in their gardens.”
