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Technical Summary
What the project is about

Relevance
Ecological Agriculture in the Middle East

Cooperation
Working together in a troubled region

Sustainability
Water-saving crops of the future

Technical Objectives
See the plants

Evaluation
How the plants are doing

Project Map
See the sites

Format
Where and how

Current Status
Project timeline

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"Small Steps Towards Abundance: Crops for a More Sustainable Agriculture" on Amazon.com, or from the publisher.
Capparis sinaica, (the mustard caper or jelly caper bush) is a semi-domesticated caper native to the Sinai (Egypt) and the Arava valley of Israel which is particularly vigorous in saline areas, produces fruit large enough to can and make into preserves and whose flower buds have a distinct mustardish flavor. It has all the positive attributes of its domesticated relative Capparis spinosa (see Capparis spinosa)

Mustard Caper


Mustard Caper Fruit






Capparis spinosa, (the caper bush) is a spiny, deciduous shrub reaches a height of between 1 and 2 meters and is of spreading habit. The leaves are oval, fleshy, blunt and sometimes indented at the tip. The flowers are large, white, reddish or tinged with lilac and short-lived. The many projecting stamens make the flower attractive to insects but it is the flower buds which have crop value. They are picked and pickled as capers and used in many traditional Mediterranean and North African dishes. Roots and bark of the caper plant are used medicinally and in cosmetics.

Caper Bush

The caper bush also has value as a reclamative plant, rooting in harsh stony soils that will not sustain other crops, growing over boulders and in cracks of stone walls. Caper plantings need only small amounts of water and well-rotted animal manure or compost to thrive and produce. They can be planted in the least promising areas of the test sites or grown along boundary areas of existing plantations. There is a venerable tradition of caper-cultivation in Morocco which may be tapped and a familiarity and appreciation of the caper plant Israel where some varieties grow wild. These elements should be beneficial for the development of the plant as a sustainable crop.

Capers


Key references 1."Medicinal Plants" Nissim Crispil, Graphor Pub. Tel Aviv 1995. 2.Herb Gardening, Cornell Plantations compiled by the UC Botannical Garden Pantheon Books, Knopf Publishing, New York, 1994. 3. The Complete Book of Edible Landscaping, Creasy, R. Sierra Clube, San Fransisco, 1982.

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For more information on this project, contact Dr. Solowey elaine@desertagriculture.org