What is grown in oases?
The living conditions in the deserts are not exactly life-friendly, which does not prevent people from living here as roaming nomads or operators of an oasis economy. Some of what is grown in the oases of North Africa, for example, finds its way to the European markets.
Despite inhospitable conditions and a lack of adaptability to the extreme conditions, people can be found in almost all deserts on earth. If you wander through deserts, you will be happy to find an oasis because there is often no shortage of food and drinking water.
Oases - patches of vegetation in the desert
The term oasis comes from Egyptian. This patch of vegetation in the desert is usually located at a water point, spring or wadi.
- Oases come in different sizes and shapes in Africa, Asia, Australia and South America. On the one hand, they are uninhabited and, on the other hand, they are intensively farmed. Kashgar on the Silk Road and Chinguetti in Mauritania are famous.
- What can be grown in an oasis depends on the area under cultivation and the water available. Desert rivers, wells and springs provide water.
- In the arid belt of North Africa, the date palm is one of the dominant crops, supplemented by a wide range of other crops.
- In Central and Central Asian oases, due to low winter temperatures, the date palms are not predominant, but peach, apricot and fig trees.
The date palm can be divided into 14 different types. The palm that ...
What and how is typically grown
Oasis economy is one of the three ways of life that have ensured people's life and survival in the desert for ages.
- Desert soil is only apparently sterile. Because if the residents have sufficient water available, which regularly irrigates the soil via a canal system, all the conditions are in place to grow different crops. Because there is also no lack of light and warmth for growth in the desert. The cultivation of useful plants takes place over several floors.
- Grains and vegetables are grown close to the ground. A few meters above the desert floor, numerous types of fruit grow from grapes and bananas to apples and oranges to lemons and peaches. Date palms can be found on the top floor, which not only protect their valuable fruits but also residents and plants from direct sunlight.
Some of the ancient oases in North Africa and Arabia have fallen victim to silting up. Others have profited from the oil boom. Groundwater is pumped from depths of up to two kilometers. Pipelines and pumps ensure the distribution and, in some cases, the creation of huge green areas in the middle of the desert.
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