Raising of Crops
Cultivation
Requirements for date palm cultivation
SOIL TYPE
Date palm is not very demanding and will grow on almost any type of soil, from almost pure sand to heavy alluvial soils, provided they furnish the basic needs of anchorage to the palm, minerals, water penetration and drainage. The optimal situation lies, therefore, in the middle and deep sandy loams are often quoted as the more suitable type of soil for the date palm.
IRRIGATION AND WATER REQUIREMENT
Date Palm is a water loving plant, but it can tolerate salinity to its highest level. Immediately after transplanting the palm should be irrigated to limit transplanting stress. The irrigation frequency is soil type dependant, but on very sandy soil it requires daily irrigation during the first summer (70-100 litres/plant). Heavy soil will require irrigation once or twice a week.
PEST AND DISEASES
There are no major pest and diseases of date palm except for Red Palm Weevils and Rhinoceros beetles, which can be manageable.
POLLINATION
The female inflorescence will emerge in the month of February to March and Pollination can be done by dusting male inflorescence over fully opened female spathe (within 2 days of spathe opening). Keeping 2 - 3 standards of male inflorescence in the female spathe also desirable Normally pollen from one single male tree is sufficient to pollinate 10 female trees. The mature male spathes (about to open) are cut from the tree remove the cover and store in shade for 24 hours. The pollen will be detached, which is ready for pollination. Main point is that in the month of Dec - Jan the temperature should be less than 20°c for flowering.
Propagation
Date palms are propagated using primarily one of three techniques:
SEED PROPAGATION
It is not a proper method of date palm propagation and ought to be discouraged.And it takes more than 5-7 years for yielding there is no certain way to determine sex of the progeny at an early stage.Consequently half of the progeny will be males and half will be females.
OFFSHOOT PROPAGATION
Offshoot plants are true to type to the parent palm. The offshoots develop from axillary buds on the trunk of the mother plant and consequently the fruit produced will be of the same quality as the mother palm and ensures uniformity of produce.
Depending on the care given, a low planting survival rate is frequently obtained when using offshoots.
TISSUE CULTURE
Tissue culture allows the Propagation of healthy selected female cultivars (disease and pest-free).Production of genetically uniform plants with 100% survival rate.Tissue culture plants grow rapidly with negligible losses and give larger quantities of fruits compared to traditionally propagated plants.
Date palms have been described as the “tree of life." The trees grow very large, produce fruit for a long time and can survive long droughts and extremely high temperatures.
According to an old Egyptian saying "A date palm is the only creation of God that resembles man.