THE STORY OF THE FARM

Because the land hadn’t been cultivated for a long time, a period of thorough preparation for planting was due. The land was tilled by a 1 – point disc plow for 8 months of 120 cm depth every 80 cm width; later by a 3 – point disc plow for 3 months of 60 – 80 cm depth. The stones and the larger rocks that were aggregated during the tilling were used in the construction of the water reservoir and storage tanks. While working on the tillage, more thorough soil tests were done to find out about soil’s fertility and needs; thus tests were done at 0 – 30, 30 – 60, 60 – 90, 90 – 120 cm every 20 dunam. Of course we also needed to find out about the water quality; thus water tests were performed on every water source around the land.

While initially irrigating with a tractor, soon after we started using a full automated drip irrigation system. In order to be control and fully automate the system spanning all of the fields, three stations were built for meteorology measurement and command.