Academic Editor: Nicola Masini Received: 25 January 2025 Revised: 9 February 2025 Accepted: 13 February 2025 Published: 15 February 2025 Citation: Ashkenazi, E.; Wachtel, I.; Bar-Oz, G.; Marom, R.; Horwitz, L.K. An Ecological Comparison of Two Abandoned Heritage Orchards in Northern Israel. Heritage 2025, 8, 76. https://doi.org/10.3390/ heritage8020076 Copyright: © 2025 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/). Article An Ecological Comparison of Two Abandoned Heritage Orchards in Northern Israel Eli Ashkenazi 1,2, * , Ido Wachtel 3 , Guy Bar-Oz 2 , Roy Marom 4 and Liora Kolska Horwitz 5 1 Department of Geography, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Oranim College, Kiryat Tivon 3600600, Israel 2 The Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies, University of Haifa, Haifa 3498838, Israel; guybar@research.haifa.ac.il 3 Institute of Archaeology, Mount Scopus, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem 9190501, Israel; ido.wachtel@mail.huji.ac.il 4 Polonsky Academy, Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, Jerusalem 9214116, Israel; mighemi@gmail.com 5 National Natural History Collections, The Hebrew University, E. Safra-Givat Ram Campus, Jerusalem 9190401, Israel; lix1000@gmail.com * Correspondence: eli.ashkenazi@mail.huji.ac.il; Tel.: +972-522948631 Abstract: In this study, we documented two relict traditional Palestinian orchards; one was abandoned following the 1948 war when the farmers were exiled to Lebanon and the second was tended by farmers up until the early 1970s. The orchards examined are located in two different Mediterranean phytogeographic regions, one in the hilly Upper Galilee and the other on the slopes of Mount Carmel in the hinterland of the Mediterranean coast. We found differences in the species composition and spatial layout of trees in each orchard which followed the dictates of the geographic settings, demonstrating the farmer’s knowledge of their environment. We discuss the importance of these orchards as part of the heritage horticultural systems of the region and explore possible measures that can be taken to preserve this unique historical arboricultural landscape and ways to empower local, traditional knowledge in promoting awareness for the conservation and preservation of heritage horticulture. Keywords: fruit trees; arboricultural diversity; Upper Galilee; Mount Carmel; agricultural sustainability; veteran tree; traditional knowledge 1. Introduction “There are comparatively few significant inefficiencies in the allocation of factors of production in traditional agriculture”. ([1], p. 37) Millennia of anthropogenic intervention have shaped the present-day landscape of Israel [2]. This is conspicuously evident in the history of fruit–crop horticulture, with the domestication of the founder group of Mediterranean fruit trees taking place in this region: olive (Olea europaea), date (Phoenix dactylifera), grape (Vitis vinifera), fig (Ficus carica), and pomegranate (Punica granatum)[3–5]. In subsequent Biblical and Classical periods, a broad variety of fruit tree species, originating from diverse biogeographic areas and including many that are propagated by grafting, were introduced and adopted locally. For example, cultivators introduced walnut (Juglans regia) from Persia and citrus fruit such as lime (Citrus medica) and lemon (Citrus × limon) from Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent [6,7]. Cultivation of a variety of fruit trees was an integral part of the landscape of Roman/Byzantine Palestine, with over 25 recorded varieties of fruit trees [8], with many species appearing for the first time in the region, e.g., pear (Pyrus communis), apple (Malus Heritage 2025, 8, 76 https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage8020076