Phoenix dactylifera Seeds | Date Palm
LATIN NAME: Phoenix dactylifera
COMMON NAME: Date Palm, Date
Plant Profile
The date palm splits its sexes between separate plants, and in an oasis a block of fruiting palms is a block of females waiting for a male that may stand hundreds of metres away. Left to the wind the crop is thin and uneven, so growers climb and tie a male flower cluster into each female crown by hand. That intervention lets a grove run at roughly one male to every fifty or one hundred trees.
A palm produces its inflorescence enclosed in a tough sheath, the spathe, which splits to release either male flowers or the female clusters that will carry fruit. Growers judge the moment by the swelling of the spathe and the first sign of colour, cut male clusters before the pollen dries, and hang a few strands inside each female cluster. Pollen can also be dried, milled and applied as a dust.
Two problems dominate the industry. Bayoud is a vascular wilt caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. albedinis, which has devastated groves in Morocco and Algeria and drives current selection for tolerant cultivars. The red palm weevil, Rhynchophorus ferrugineus, bores into the crown from the inside, and a single infested palm can seed a whole region through the movement of planting material.
Date palms cross with their relatives, and the Canary Island date palm, Phoenix canariensis, is close enough to produce vigorous hybrids wherever both are planted together. The offspring are intermediate in trunk thickness and set fruit that is usually dry and unremarkable. Seed from a mixed planting may therefore be hybrid rather than pure.
Science & Biotechnology
The chemistry of the crop is mostly sugar chemistry, and that is why dates keep. Ripe flesh is dominated by glucose and fructose with some sucrose, plus dietary fibre and phenolic acids in which caffeic acid and ferulic acid are commonly reported. The pit is not waste: its oil is rich in lauric acid and myristic acid with oleic acid as the main unsaturated component. Tissue-culture work induces somatic embryos from young flower tissues or shoot tips and multiplies them in bioreactor vessels.
Uses & Benefits
Date fruit passes through four recognised stages. Kimri, the immature green stage, is firm and astringent, low in sugar. In khalal the fruit reaches full size and turns yellow, orange or red, with crisp flesh and sugar beginning to build. Rutab brings softening and a translucent brown skin as the sugars convert. Tamr is the dark cured stage, soft and sticky, that most of the world recognises as a date. Khalal fruit is sold fresh locally and tamr is dried for export; a cured tamr keeps far better than a soft rutab.
Cultivar names carry the history of the trade. Medjool, a large soft date with a thick skin, came out of the Tafilalt region of Morocco in the early twentieth century and travelled to California through quarantine stations and offshoot shipments. Deglet Nour, the translucent date of the Algerian and Tunisian oases, is drier and lighter. Because each named clone is a single genotype, a grove of one cultivar is effectively one plant repeated across a valley.
Growing from Seed
A date palm makes no reliable offspring from seed, because a seedling is a new genotype shaped by windborne pollen. Commercial planting therefore relies on offshoots, the suckers that form around the base of a good female and can be separated once they have their own roots. The pup is cut, pruned back, rooted in a shaded nursery bed and irrigated until it stands alone, and the clone stays true.
Fresh seed from a cured date works, but clean every trace of flesh off the pit, because sugar residue invites mould. Soak the pits in tepid water, discard any that float, then sow them on their side about 1 cm deep in a free-draining mix of two parts loam, one part coarse sand and one part coir. Warmth is the deciding factor, so a shaded propagation bench or a warm indoor corner suits better than a cold frame.
The pit sends a single strong root before the shoot appears, so deep containers beat shallow trays. Keep young palms in bright light and turn them so the crown grows straight. Once a plant has a rosette of fronds and a firm base, pot on into a mix with extra grit and feed a balanced liquid fertiliser through the warm season.
Our Take
A date pit from a fruit bowl is a legitimate starting point, and the palm that follows makes a handsome container plant even where fruit will never set. If you want the ornamental cousins instead, try the Canary Island date palm for a thick trunk, the silver date palm for a sweeter sap crop, or the compact pygmy date palm for a pot.
Related Reading
Gardeners who grow Date Palm often pair it with these related subjects: