These Stunning Black Roses Only Grow in Summer in the Small Turkish Village Known As Halfeti

PART ONE

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These stunning black roses only grow in summer in the small Turkish village known as Halfeti. They are extremely rare, and only grow here due to the soil conditions and pH levels of the ground water which comes from the river Euphrates. The flowers start out a deep red color and gradually get darker. They are so rare they’re close to extinction due to the village being moved in the 90’s, and locals have been trying hard to keep the flowers growing.

We bet you thought that black roses didn’t really exist and for the most part you would be right. While blue and rainbow roses are created by florists, the story of the black rose is completely different. Black roses aren’t a natural variety that you can purchase from your local nursery; they’re much more elusive than that.

Black roses, called the Turkish Halfeti Rose, Arab Bride or Arab Beauty, bloom in small numbers exclusively in the village of Halfeti, Turkey.

This unique rose is extremely rare and strangely beautiful. It doesn’t bloom in petals of ebony immediately however. The rose blossoms a dark red but this scarlet shade fades to black as the summer progresses.

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While the Turkish Halfeti Rose can only be grow in this very specific part of the world, its limited availability wasn’t immediately known until the residents of Halfeti were forced to relocate.

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In the 1990s the Birecik Dam was built and by the 2000s it was filled with water. As a result of the newly constructed dam, the residents of Old Halfeti were repositioned about 10 kilometres away in what became known as the “new” Halfeti. The residents took their rose plants with them and replanted them in their new village but quickly realised that something was wrong. The roses failed to thrive in their new location. While only a short distance from their original home, the soil in Old Halfeti had been fed by the waters of the Euphrates, which has a unique pH level. To prevent the extinction of this unique beauty, district officials collected seeds from the roses and planted them in greenhouses close to Old Halfeti. In doing so, they managed to save the striking rose.

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While the rose can be grown in other regions around the world, only in Halfeti does the rose bloom in its black hue; when planted elsewhere, the rose always blooms in deep red.Unique, intriguing and only found in one part of the world, the Turkish Halfeti Rose is truly one of a kind!

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PART TWO

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This Rare Black Rose Can Only Be Found in Turkey

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PART THREE

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pH IN SOIL

To ensure that your crops make the most of the soil, you need to understand your soil’s pH.

The term pH stands for the potential (p) of hydrogen ions (H+) in water. In simple terms pH is measuring how acid or alkaline the soil condition is. It is measured on a logarithmic scale 0 to 14 with a neutral value of 7 in the middle, pH value below is acidic soil and pH value above 7 is alkaline. Each change of 1 pH unit actually represents a 10-fold increase in soil acidity or alkalinity.

The pH describes the relative acidity or alkalinity of the soil and it has important implications for plant health and growth. Soil pH impacts beneficial fungi and bacteria in the soil and influences whether essential minerals are available for uptake by plant roots. Since plant roots are very sensitive, they are affected by excessive acidity (low pH) and alkalinity (high pH) in soils.

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All nutrients are easily available at a pH range of 6-7. Under alkaline conditions, trace elements such as Iron, Zinc and Manganese are less available for plants to take up, resulting in trace elements deficiences. On the other hand, under high acidic conditions, major nutrients like Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium and Calcium become less available resulting in deficiency symptoms.

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Blueberries and potatoes prefer acidic soil (low pH). Asparagus likes alkaline conditions (high pH).Illustration by Elayne Sears

The crop requirements diagram provides a guide to the optimum pH levels for some important crops. If soil pH is lower than the bottom of the indicated range, then crop yields will begin to suffer severely due to the crops' inability to tolerate that level of acidity. Those crops which are tolerant to acidity would be more profitable at higher pH values. At a pH of 4.9 one is not getting as good a response from the fertilisers applied to maximise the potato crop as at the optimum pH. Lime also aids soil fertility in grassland and ensures that added fertilisers are utilised to maximum effectiveness and helps to increase crop yield either as hay, silage, or grazing. It is particularly important to adjust soil pH well in advance for sensitive crops such as oilseed rape, sugar beet, barley and peas. Spreading should be even, accurate, and cause little disruption to the soil structure.

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Acids, Bases and pH

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LIEBIG'S LAW OF THE MINIMUM or LIEBIG'S BARREL

Liebig’s Law, also known as The Law of Limiting Factors, derives from a discovery made by a German botanist named Carl Sprengel and later popularized by German chemist Justus von Liebig. This law states that a plant’s performance is affected not by the most abundant resource, but by the most deficient one. Essentially, a plant will only yield as much as the least available nutrient allows. While this law ultimately had far reaching biological implications, this post focuses on the lessons germane to plant nutrients.

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Liebig illustrated the concept of limitation using a metaphorical barrel with each stave representing a different element. A nutrient stave that was shorter than the others would cause the liquid contained in the barrel to spill out at that level. Illustrated otherwise, a cooper that built his barrel ten feet high would have worked in vain if his last stave was only five feet long. With this visual aid, the notion of limiting factors is intuitive and seems almost obvious, but is easily overlooked when attempting to remediate problems or improve yields.

Agriculture Chemistry ~ Justus von Liebig

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LITERATURE[1]

VIDEO CLIPS[2]

This Rare Black Rose Can Only Be Found in Turkey

Agriculture Chemistry ~ Justus von Liebig

[1] Last accessed on November 4th, 2016

[2] Last accessed on November 4th, 2016