Yarkhun Valley (appellation)
More actions
| Yarkhun Valley | |
|---|---|
| ActiveRecorded as grown here since 2000 | |
| Hierarchy | |
| Growing Region | Hindu Kush |
| Growing Area | Chitral |
| Geography | |
| Country | Pakistan |
| Province/State | Khyber Pakhtunkhwa |
| District | Upper Chitral District |
| Coordinates | 36.30, 72.50 |
| Landscape | |
| Area | 1,050 km² |
| Terrain | High mountain valley of the Yarkhun river, gorges alternating with broad beds of sand and shingle, irrigated by glacier meltwater; approximately the Yarkhun catchment above Mastuj |
| Climate | |
| Climate Type | Semi-arid, cold winters |
| Growing history | |
| Dated accessions | 2015–2021 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Yarkhun Valley is a landrace cannabis appellation in Upper Chitral District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, in the Chitral growing area of the Hindu Kush growing region. It is the valley of the Yarkhun river from the Broghil area down to Mastuj. The Real Seed Company has sold seed collected there since 2015 under the name Chitrali, and its listing for the 2015 and 2018 stock read "personally collected at source in Yarkhun Valley, Chitral, Hindu Kush".[1][2]
Geography
The Chiantar glacier, at the head of the Yarkhun, is the longest glacier in Chitral, at 32 km.[3] A British military gazetteer of 1928 called the valley "a series of narrow gorges or defiles" alternating with broad beds of sand or shingle.[4]: 26 The route along it from the Baroghil pass to Mastuj, some 78 miles, was a winter route, open from about the middle of September, when the river becomes fordable, until the end of May. Mastuj stands at the junction of the Yarkhun and Laspur valleys.[4]
The head of the valley is Broghil, which covers 1,348 km² at about 3,810 m and is the shortest route from Chitral to Afghanistan and Central Asia, by the Darwaza and Broghil passes.[5] Long winters used to cut the 50 km Baroghil valley off from the rest of the country, until the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme built a 32 km all-weather road into it.[6]: 150
The valley lies in Mastuj Tehsil of Upper Chitral District. The district was notified on 20 November 2018 with its headquarters at Booni, and Yarkhun is one of the union councils of the tehsil.[7]
Climate
Irrigation in Chitral depends on meltwater from the mountains, above all in the basins of the Yarkhun and its tributary the Turkho.[3] The 1928 gazetteer recorded snow on the Baroghil pass from about the last week of October, and noted that at Mastuj, exposed to the wind at the meeting of two valleys, snow seldom lay for more than a few days at a time.[4]
History
In 1928 the Yarkhun valley and Mastuj were under a separate governor, Mehtar Jao Bahadur Khan, styled Governor of Mastuj.[4] The same gazetteer listed charas among the goods imported into Chitral from Badakhshan,[4] and British India's report for 1926 recorded that a warehouse had been set up at Chitral to stop the smuggling of charas from Central Asia through it.[8]
Demography
Ismaili villages are found in the Yarkhun and Turkho valleys, and their people speak Wakhi.[3] Broghil, at the head of the valley, is home to about 200 households of Wakhi and Sarikoli people of the Ismaili community, many with family ties across the border in Afghanistan.[5] Yaks are kept in the upper valley as pack animals and for meat.[3]
Traditional cultivation
In 1991 Nigel Allan counted the making of hashish from cannabis, with opium production, among the sources of rural income in Chitral.[3] The Real Seed Company sold its Chitrali seed for making charas (sieved resin), from a harvest of late September to early November.[1] Its 2019 stock came through the intermediary Landrace Genetics, from the 2019 harvest in the Yarkhun Valley.[9]
Accessions
| Accession ID | Name | Collected |
|---|---|---|
| RSC-PAK-KHY-0120150001 | Chitrali General Population 2015 | |
| RSC-PAK-KHY-0120180001 | Chitrali General Population 2018 | |
| RSC-PAK-KHY-0120190001 | Chitrali General Population 2019 | |
| RSC-PAK-KHY-0120210001 | Chitrali General Population 2021 |
The four accessions are Chitrali general populations from the harvests of 2015, 2018, 2019 and 2021. The seed of 2018 is also held by the U.S. National Plant Germplasm System as G 33695, whose entry places the collection at the junction of the Yarkhun and Laspur valleys.[10]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Chitrali". The Real Seed Company. Archived from the original on 19 August 2019. Retrieved 17 September 2026.
- ↑ "Chitrali". The Real Seed Company. Archived from the original on 22 October 2019. Retrieved 17 September 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Allan, Nigel J. R. (1991). "Chitral i. Geography". Encyclopaedia Iranica. Vol. V. fasc. 5, pp. 487–494. Retrieved 17 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 General Staff, India (1928). Military Report and Gazetteer on Chitral (PDF) (2nd ed.). Calcutta: Government of India Press. Retrieved 17 October 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Sabbah, Arfaa; Abbasi, Arshad Mehmood; Aziz, Muhammad Abdul; Benhasher, Fahdah Falah; Pieroni, Andrea; Aldosari, Ali Abdullah; Gatasheh, Mansour K.; Amin, Muhammad (30 September 2024). "Women's knowledge of local plants and their gastronomic heritage in Chitral, NW Pakistan". Plants. 13 (19) 2747. doi:10.3390/plants13192747.
- ↑ Noor Ul Amin (25 June 2024). "Chitral-Shandoor/Baroghal Pass: Karakoram Highway and Central Asian Republics human/physical connectivity". Al-Azhar. 10 (1): 147–162. Retrieved 17 October 2026.
- ↑ "Upper Chitral notified as new district". Chitral Today. 20 November 2018. Retrieved 17 October 2026.
- ↑ United Nations Secretariat (1953). "The surprising extinction of the charas traffic". Bulletin on Narcotics (1). United Nations: 1–7.
- ↑ "Chitrali". The Real Seed Company. Archived from the original on 5 August 2020. Retrieved 17 September 2026.
- ↑ "G 33695, Cannabis sativa L., Chitral 2018". GRIN-Global. USDA Agricultural Research Service, National Plant Germplasm System. Retrieved 17 October 2026.