Next day - we visited the citrus research centre in Sargodha.  It was 2 hrs drive out into the country where we came to a small town bustling with water buffalo, goats, motorbike, cars, rickshaws, donkeys, carts and people, it looked like chaos to me but somehow it all seems to flow without too much incident.  The local roads are pretty bad but the highways are excellent with plenty of tolls (they even have etag on some).  Driving in your lane only seems mandatory on the highways - everywhere else it seems like everyone weeves in and out or jockeys for the best positions = even manuvering between cars coming the other way.  

We met with the researchers there and caught up with the work they are doing.  Some breeding work for seedlessness, irrigation monitoring etc.  Irrigation is flood but they have set up some trials of a pressurised system using under tree sprinklers and drip - water availability can be a bit hit or miss.  They usually have good quality river water but when that is not available they use the aquifers that have an ec of 1500, so you can see the soil is damaged by sodicity.  Water costs the equivilent of $3/Ha per year.  

The trees look pretty good but they have citrus canker and citrus greening here.  They tell me that farmers think that after planting the tree, there job is over apart for some watering.  They don't want to fertilise or spray etc, so considering that the crop looked good too, I would have called it a small crop or off year for citrus but they were telling me it was a good crop or on year in their standards.

They really are nice people.  They took us to a restaurant for lunch which had amazing food, I think I surprised everyone with my liking for their hot spicy food.  After lunch we went back to the research centre and while Tahir (travelling companion) went to check out some of the work he has them doing from his last visit - I went to smoke a hookah with the centre director - this caused much amusement from the staff and they all took pictures of me - in fact I'm pretty sick of getting my picture taken - everytime you do something they are either videoing or taking still pictures.  They have asked me to come back next year and I'm very happy to do that as I have really enjoyed it - I can't stress enought that the people are very welcoming, generous and hospitable and I feel very safe.    

Today they are taking me to the bazzar but I'm not sure they are going to let me out of the car.   I will also be giving a presentation on citrus pests for university students today
That's all I have time for now - will try and send more tomorrow.