Jojoba oil -- another kibbutz breakthrough

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In the basket are bottles of 100% pure natural jojoba oil, which apparently does wonders on the skin and hair.
I'm sorry now that I didn't splurge and buy some when our group toured Kibbutz Hatzerim.

The kibbutz grows the bushes, harvests the beans you see above, cold mills them and makes the oil, which is really a liquid wax.
They presently make 1/3 of the world's production of jojoba oil.
Most is exported to big cosmetics manufacturers,  but the kibbutz keeps a little to sell on the premises and online.

The kibbutz cultivates thousands of dunams of jojoba, and the area is set to expand.
(The dunam has been standardized in modern times to mean 1,000 square meters, but in Ottoman Turkish times the word dunam meant "the amount of land that could be plowed by a team of oxen in one day.")

Weeds are not a problem because there is so little rain here in the Negev desert.
No herbicides are used.
Drip irrigation lines are buried 12-15 cm below the surface;  each bush has its own dripper, invented and produced by Kibbutz Hatzerim, so it gets all the water it needs directly to its roots.
It is computerized so each plant gets individual attention.

Rows are four meters apart.
At harvest season in the autumn a tractor goes down the row, its silicon arms shaking the bush until the beans fall.
Then with big brushes made in nearby Kibbutz Ruhama's brush factory, the jojoba beans are swept up.
Our kibbutz guide said they harvest ten tons per day.
Processing is then done inside the kibbutz with cold milling, much like in olive pressing.

Pollination is by wind only.
At Hatzerim 50 female plants need only ONE male, whereas in the world it is more like 8 or 10 that are pollinated by one male.
To learn more about this interesting plant and the Jojoba Israel company, see their website (in several languages).
In Israel we pronounce it kho-KHO-va.  And you?
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(Linking to ABC Wednesday, for J-day.)
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