TECHNICAL BULLETIN 5 THE CAROB VARIETIES OF CYPRUS BY P. 1. ORPHANOS, PH. D 1. PAPACONSTANTINOU CYPRUS AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND NATURAL RESOURCES DECEMBER 1969 NICOSIA THE CAROB VARIETIES OF CYPRUS By P. 1. Orphanos and J. Papaconstantinou ABSTRACT Two hundred and thirty-one carob trees growing in 12 representative areas in the carob zone in Cyprus were studied. The results indicate that there are remarkable similarities between the vast majority of the trees studied. These trees may be identified with the variety Tylliria. already described by other authors. However, two additional varieties were found in the Karpass Peninsula area of Cyprus. These varieties were identified as Koundourka and Koumbota. The morphological and chemical characteristics of the fruit, and the morphological characteristics of the leaves and shoots of the three varieties are described. INTRODUCTION Carobs, the ripe fruit of the carob tree, Ceratonia siliqua L., have long been harvested as a major crop in Cyprus. The annual production of carobs in Cyprus between 1946 and 1968 has fluctuated around 50,000 tons. These fluctuations seem to have followed the previous season's rainfall (Fig. 1). The average annual production of carobs over the period 1901-1930 was 44,000 tons (Ticho, 1958), which shows that carob production in Cyprus has remained fairlY steady over the last 50 years. Cyprus is the third larg'est producer of carobs after Spain and Italy (Table 1). Almost the whole carob produce of Cyprus ha~ been traditionally exported. The value of carob exports exceede( that of other agricultural exports until 1950 \vhen production an exports of citrus, and later of potatoes and grapes, started increasin while production and exports of carobs remained almost stead As a result of this, carobs are now in fourth position in the list values of agricultural exports (Fig. 2). The decline, as a proporti of total exports, was from 22 to 6 per cent. During the period 1962-1966 the average number of carob tr in bearing condition was 2.4 million. These trees produced average annual yield of 48,000 tons of carobs or 20 kg of ca' per tree (Annual Reports, Department of Agriculture). 3 Table 1. The Carob Production of the :Main Carob Growing Countries. Average annual Country Reference production (tons) Spain 408,000 (for 1950-1952) Goor et a1. (1958) Italy 61,000 (for 1950-1956) Goor et a1. (1958) Cyprus 53,000 (for 1959-1968) Annual Reports, Dept. of Agriculture, Cyprus. Greece 35,000 (for 1960-1966) Mitrakos (1968) Portugal 28.500 (for 1950-1952) Goor et a1. (1958) Algiers :20,000 Goor et a1. (1958) Morocco 7,OUO (exports only) GOOI' et a1. (1958) Turkey 5,000 (exports only) Goor et a1. (1958) Malta 3,000 Goor et a1. (1958) Carob growing In Cyprus is concentrated along the seaward slopes and foothills of the two mountain ranges 'which run in parallel, one along the southern and the other along the northern part of the island. The trees may gro\v to an altitude of about 650 m (Fig. 3). This rather sharp altitudinal limit of the carob suggests that the limitation is due to damage by cold (Jones et a1., 1958) . Carob trees are also almost absent from the Mesaoria, the central plain situated between the two mountain ranges. The reason for this seems to be aridity because on the one hand rainfall is low (350 mm) and on the other hand potential evaporation is high (2100 mm)l. Cyprus has become world famous for the quality of its carobs (Ticho, 1958). The main variety grown in Cyprus, and the only one recognized as such so far, namely 'Tylliria', has also been intro­ duced into other countries, e.g. United States (Coit, 1967) and Israel (Ticho, 1958), where it has been greatly appreciated as a commercial variety. Indeed, 'Tylliria' has been established as the main carob variety in Israel (Goor et al.) 1958). Strange though it may seem, very few growers in Cyprus identify their 'Tylliria' carobs with the name Tylliria. This is because it is generally believed that only carobs grown in the Tylliria area, where the variety supposedly originated, belong to this variety. In fact, the name 'Tylliria' seems to have been coined by researchers. 1 Mean of the values obtained in 1967 and 1968 at the Agricultural Research Institute farm, Athalassa (near Nicosia), from a US\VE Class A pan. For comparison, it may be worth mentioning that evaporation for the same period at Vassilia (near Panagra; see Fig. 3) was only 1370 mm. 4 Cypriot carob growers use various names when they refer to their carobs. A number of these names were found by Ticho (1958) to be just synonyms of the variety 'Tylliria'. However, Ticho also noted some other 'types' of carobs, which he considered inferior to 'Tylliria', but carried his observations no further. Prelimin~ry observations by one of us (J.P.) suggested that the types of Cyprus carobs merited more thorough investigation. As a result, the present work was undertaken with a view to differentiate varieties of carobs in Cyprus. 600 "'""S E sao '-' eo -'1J ,~ -c: en f . - "'"" '-c::l ... 70 . ~ .....0 \ I . 400 '"0 -. 6 \ '-' · ,..... .~. I \ .',I'"I 0 /\ / . / ..... SO '-0 I· I'.,,', / \ ....... 00 '1:l . \ I '-', I ........ / '. / 0... 40 . I·· " Q, \. \/',.I" I \ .1 \/' .q . V 0... 30 ;-: u 20 It I CD... ...,o ...,M ...o ...N Fig. 1. Annual carob production (broken line) and mean annual rainfall (solid line) in the carob pr,oducing areas for the period 1946-1968. (Data on production were obtained from the Annual Reports of the Dept. of Agriculture; values for annual rainfall, total rainfall from 1st October of the preceding year until 30th September of the year in question, were worked out from isohyetal maps (Toufexis, 1967) by using individual areas as weighting factors). 5 _ Miscellaneous 1L § Citrus b~~~~d Vine products 12 ~PotalDes l' o C.~robs 10 8 ~ .S 7 "-' CJ) v :J , co ­~ ..... § 0 "'"Q. >< kl 4 ] 2 0 WI CD C N ~ WI CD C N ~ .. ~ -I wt • crI .. .. eft en ~ .. QI eft .. crI "" ""en ""en "".-en "" .­ ...- ..- ...- .- .- ..- ..- .- .­ Fig. 2. Values of agricultural exports for the period 1946-68. (Data o.btained frorh the Annual Reports of the Department of Agriculture). 6 MATERIALS AND METHODS The study was carried out mainly in 1968, a year of a slightly above average carob production (Fig. 1, Table 1). All data to be presented hereafter, therefore, should be considered as having been collected in summer and autumn 1968, unless otherwise stated. Twelve locations representing the important carob growing areas of Cyprus were selected in July 1968 (Fig. 3). On the first visit to these locations information was collected from carob growers relating to the "kinds' of carobs they thought there were in their area.. On the basis of this information, two to five sites, spaced from one to five miles apart, were selected in each location and re­ presentative trees growing in them were marked to be studied further. To mark the trees, the total number of which was 231, numbered metal plates were nailed onto their trunks in July 1968. At the first and subsequent visits to the trees, records were taken of their appearance and habit, and mature leaves and pods were sampled and brought to the laboratory for the measurement of various characters. Limited records on flowering were also taken. The shoot and leaf characteristics studied were: the colour of young shoots, the number of leaflets per leaf, the dimensions of the leaflets, and the venation of leaflets. Both morphological and chemical pod characteristics were studied. To do this, 25 pods were randomly sampled from each tree. Of these, 10 were used to measure various morphological characteristics while the remaining 15 were analysed for their chemical composition. The pods were sampled between 5 and 23 August, when they were physiologically fully mature (Davies and Orphanos, unpublished data), just prior to the official opening of the harvesting! season. The morphological characteristics of the intact pod which were studied are shown in Fig. 4. As soon as their measurements had been taken the pods were cut into pieces and the seeds were separated from the remainder of the pod material. Each component was then weighed and the number of seeds recorded. From the seeds obtained from the ten pods examined per tree, ten seeds were taken at random; the length, the maximum width and the maximum thickness of these seeds were measured. For the chemical analyses, the 15 pods of each sample were cut into pieces and the se!eds removed and kept separately. The 1 According to Government regulation, no one can harvest carobs earlier than the date set each year for each major area. These dates are usually between a 20 and 30 August and they are meant to safeguard against harvesting .of carobs containing too much water, which would render the pods liable to decay in the store. 7 CYPRUS-C~rob m~p 0 '0 20 30 'p , , ! f I< rn ARE A. 1 Pyrgos (Tylliri~) 2 Dhiorios 3 P~n~gr~ J. Ak~nthou 5 Kom~ tou Yi~tou 6 SkHinou 7 LefkH~ 8 Apsiou 9 PH~myth~ 10 Ypson~s 11 Souni 12 Pissouri Fig. 3. Car,ob map of Cyprus (after Jones et al., 1958) indicating tlte areas included in the study. pedicel ........ ......... ,I )/~ j::n t )..... ed/)e j )/ '-, $$ (1 edge -- groove side edg e side ---++-+ , / } \ I I / / I I / I I / I mlcropy. IIe I / I edge I \/~~ I li _.... I . ..... _<- stigma appendage I...,__W_Id,,-t_h__~ \ stigma edge0 height Fig.