Date palm

• 1. Introduction

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  The date palm, Phoenix dactylifera, has grown seven trees named Methuselah, Hannah, Adam, Judith, Boaz, Jonah and Uriel. Each one sprouted from a seed about 2000 years old that had been stored by accident. The seeds came from a cultivar known as the Judean date palm, renowned for seeds that stay alive far longer than most. Nobody yet knows the upper limit for how long a properly stored seed can survive.

  The tree itself is a flowering plant in the palm family Arecaceae, native to the region from the Gulf States to Pakistan. Its genus, Phoenix, holds 12 to 19 wild species, and the date palm is the type species. So where did such a tree really begin? How does a plant with separate male and female trees fill desert orchards with fruit? And why do several faiths, and kitchens from Morocco to Britain, all lay claim to it?

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• 2. Separate Sexes

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  Fifty percent is the share of date palm seedlings that turn out female, and only females bear fruit. The species is dioecious, which means male and female flowers grow on separate plants. Like every member of the genus Phoenix, it settles sex through an XY system. Researchers have identified three genes that every male carries and no female does. Growing from seed is easy, but dates from seedlings are often smaller and of poorer quality. Most commercial plantations therefore plant cuttings taken from heavily cropping cultivars. Cuttings also start fruiting 2 to 3 years earlier than seedlings do.

  In Iraq, the pollinator climbs the trunk with a special tool called تبلية in Arabic. The tool wraps around the tree and the climber's back, keeping him fastened to the trunk. Left alone, date palms are wind-pollinated, and natural pollination works with about equal numbers of male and female plants. Yet traditional oasis horticulture and modern commercial orchards both rely entirely on hand pollination. With assistance, one male can pollinate up to 100 females. Males are valuable only as pollinators, so growers usually prune them in favour of fruit-producing females. Some growers keep no males at all, because male flowers turn up at local markets at pollination time. The work falls to skilled labourers on ladders, or to a wind machine. Pollination is only the first step, since a planted palm can make its owner wait years.

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• 3. Orchard Demands

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  A mature date palm can stand 30 m tall, growing singly or as a clump of several stems from one root system. It grows slowly and can pass 100 years of age when properly maintained. Its leaves run 4 to 6 m long, with spines on the stalk and about 150 leaflets. Each leaflet is roughly 30 cm long and 2 cm wide. The full crown spans 6 to 10 m, and the roots carry structures called pneumatodes. The tree grows where average temperatures run from 12.7 to 27.5 °C.

  Four to eight years after planting is when a date palm may first bear fruit. Viable yields for commercial harvest begin between 7 and 10 years. A mature palm can produce 150 to 300 lb of dates in a season. The fruit does not ripen all at once, so several harvests are needed. Before ripening, the bunches must be thinned and bagged or covered. That lets the remaining fruit grow larger and shields it from the weather and from birds, which also like dates.

  A pH of 8-11 describes the alkaline soil the palm needs. It should be well-drained, deep sandy loam that holds moisture and is free of calcium carbonate.

  The red palm beetle, Rhynchophorus ferrugineus, currently threatens date production in parts of the Middle East. It also endangers iconic landscape specimens throughout the Mediterranean world. Another insect pest, Ommatissus lybicus, is sometimes called the dubas bug. Its sap-sucking leads to the growth of sooty mould. For a grower, losing a palm means starting the long wait all over again.

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• 4. Roots and Routes

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  Fossil records show the date palm has existed for at least 50 million years, yet its birthplace is still argued over. Long cultivation has blurred the trail. Some sources say it probably arose in the Fertile Crescent, in the region straddling Egypt and Mesopotamia. Others place it around the Persian Gulf, or trace it to a wild date palm from western India.

  Farmers left firmer evidence than botanists did. At Mehrgarh, a Neolithic civilisation in western Pakistan, date cultivation appears around 7000 BCE. In eastern Arabia it appears between 5530 and 5320 calBC. In the Levant the earliest traces come from the Chalcolithic period, at Nahal Mishmar in Israel and Teleilat el-Ghassul in Jordan. The ancient Egyptians ate dates at harvest and made date wine from them. Evidence keeps turning up in later Indus Valley civilisations, including the Harappan period from 2600 to 1900 BCE.

  A draft genome of the Khalas variety was published in 2011, followed by more complete assemblies in 2013 and 2019. The later study used long-read sequencing, and it let researchers map genes for fruit colour and sugar content. Researchers at NYU Abu Dhabi had also re-sequenced several varieties in 2015. That work produced the first single nucleotide polymorphism map of the date palm genome. A further study from the NYU Abu Dhabi Center for Genomics and Systems Biology looked at North African varieties such as Medjool and Deglet Nour. It found they share large parts of their genome with Middle East date palms, with the Cretan wild palm Phoenix theophrasti, and with the Indian wild palm Phoenix sylvestris.

  Ibn al-'Awwam included an article on date palm cultivation in his 12th-century agricultural work, Book on Agriculture. In later times, traders spread dates around southwest Asia, northern Africa and Spain. Dates were introduced to Mexico as early as the 16th century. The Spaniards had them growing near Mission San Diego de Alcalá in California by 1769. Today the species is cultivated across northern Africa, the Middle East, Australia, South and Southeast Asia, Portugal, Spain, the coastal Mediterranean basin and the desert regions of Southern California. It has also naturalised in many tropical and subtropical regions. Medjool and Deglet Nour are grown in Sonora and Baja California too.

  Eleven healthy Medjool palms were transferred from Morocco to the United States in the 1920s. Members of the Chemehuevi tribe tended them in a remote region of Nevada, and nine survived. In 1935, cultivars were moved to the U.S. Date Garden in Indio, California. That stock was eventually reintroduced to Africa, and it led to American date production in Yuma, Arizona, and Bard, California.

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• 5. Varieties and Numbers

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  Hussain and El-Zeid reported 400 date varieties in 1975, while Nixon had named around 250 in 1954. The exact number is hard to assess, because varieties emerged over a long history of cultivation. Most are limited to a particular region, and only a few dozen have gained broader commercial importance. The most renowned include Deglet Noor, originally of Algeria, and Yahidi and Hallawi of Iraq. Medjool comes from Morocco and Mazafati from Iran. Growers also sort dates into three groups: soft, such as Medjool; semi-dry, such as Deglet Nour; and dry, such as Thoory.

  The fruit is oval-cylindrical, 3 to 7 cm long and 2 to 3 cm across. Colour runs from dark brown to bright red or yellow, depending on variety. Each fruit holds a single stone about 2 to 2.5 cm long and 6 to 8 mm thick. The Greek word daktylos, meaning both 'date' and 'finger', stands behind the tree's names. Latin borrowed it as dactylus and added fero, 'to bear', to form dactylifera, 'date-bearing'. English took the word date through Old French and Latin. A variety once called Phoenix dactylifera var. jubae, now considered a synonym for P. canariensis, was named after King Juba II.

  In 2024, world production of dates reached 9.9 million tonnes. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria and Iran led the table, together accounting for 63% of the total.

  Dried dates contain 63-64% sugar by mass. Deglet noor dates are 21% water, 75% carbohydrates, 2% protein and less than 1% fat. The carbohydrates break down into 63% sugars and 8% dietary fibre. The main sugars are glucose at 20%, fructose at 20% and sucrose at 24%. A 100 g reference amount supplies 1180 kJ of food energy. Potassium reaches 22% of the Daily Value, which makes dates a rich source. Pantothenic acid, vitamin B6, magnesium and manganese each land between 10 and 19%, a moderate level. The glycemic index across varieties runs from 38 to 71 and averages 53, which marks dates as a relatively low glycemic food.

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• 6. At the Table

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  Almonds, walnuts, pecans, candied orange and lemon peel, tahini, marzipan and cream cheese all serve as fillings for stoned dates. Dry or soft dates are also eaten straight from the hand. Partially dried stoned dates may be glazed with glucose syrup as a snack. Chopped dates go into sweet and savoury dishes, from tajines in Morocco to puddings and ka'ak, a type of Arab cookie. In the United States, date nut bread is a cake especially popular around holidays. Processing yields cubes, a paste called 'ajwa, spread, powder known as date sugar, vinegar and alcohol. Vinegar from dates was a traditional product of the Middle East. Date syrup goes by the name dibs, or rub in Libya. Recent innovations include chocolate-covered dates and sparkling date juice, used in some Islamic countries as a non-alcoholic version of champagne at special occasions.

  Britain's maritime trading heritage shows in its puddings. Imported chopped dates feature in, or form the main basis of, sticky toffee pudding, Christmas pudding and date and walnut loaf. Whole dates are especially easy to find at Christmas time. Dates are also an ingredient of HP Sauce, a popular British condiment.

  In Southeast Spain, a large plantation includes the UNESCO-protected Palmeral of Elche. There, dates, usually stoned and stuffed with fried almond, are wrapped in bacon and shallow-fried. In Israel, date syrup called silan is used when cooking chicken, in sweets and desserts, and as a honey substitute. Dates are one of the ingredients of jallab, a Middle Eastern fruit syrup. In Pakistan, a thick syrup made from the ripe fruit coats leather bags and pipes to stop leaks.

  The daddelgaffel is a small Scandinavian fork with two metal tines, made to handle sticky dates. Some designs were patented. A cheap, pale plastic fork with a knobbled shape resembling a date branch largely replaced it. It traditionally comes with prepackaged trays of dates. That practice has declined as resealable packaging spreads and calls grow for fewer single-use plastics.

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• 7. Beyond the Fruit

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  Lauric acid makes up 36% of date seed oil, and oleic acid makes up 41%. The oil suits cosmetics and dermatological uses. Whole date palm seeds hold 0.56-5.4% lauric acid. Seeds are soaked and ground into animal feed, and they can be processed chemically as a source of oxalic acid. They are also ground and used like coffee beans, or added to coffee. In experiments, mice fed an aqueous extract of date seeds showed anti-genotoxic effects. The extract reduced DNA damage induced by N-nitroso-N-methylurea.

  In North Africa, date palm leaves are commonly used to make huts. Mature leaves become mats, screens, baskets and fans, and processed leaves can be made into insulating board. Dried leaf petioles are a source of cellulose pulp. They also become walking sticks, brooms, fishing floats and fuel. Leaf sheaths are prized for their scent, and their fibre goes into rope, coarse cloth and large hats. Stripped fruit clusters serve as brooms, and floral stalks have recently been found to have ornamental value in households.

  Young date leaves are cooked and eaten as a vegetable, as is the terminal bud, or heart, though removing it kills the palm. In times of scarcity, finely ground seeds are mixed with flour to make bread. Female flowers are the ones traditionally sold, and each weighs 300 to 400 g. Flower buds go into salads, or are ground with dried fish to make a condiment for bread.

  Wild date palms such as Phoenix sylvestris and Phoenix reclinata can be tapped for sap, depending on the region, as can P. dactylifera. Drinking raw date palm sap is one way the deadly Nipah virus spreads from bats to humans. Boiling the sap down to molasses inactivates the virus. In Malaysia, by contrast, the vector was found to be factory farming of pigs.

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• 8. Sacred Palm

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  More than 50 times in the Bible and 20 times in the Quran, dates are mentioned by name. One description calls them "emblematic of oasis agriculture and highly symbolic in Muslim, Christian, and Jewish religions". The tree was heavily cultivated as a food source in ancient Israel, where Judaism and then Christianity developed.

  The Seven Species, called shivat haminim, are traditionally associated with the Land of Israel, and the date palm is one of them. Scholars interpret the "honey" in the Exodus 3 description of a land "flowing with milk and honey" as date syrup rather than bee honey. Palms are named in the Torah in connection with Elim, Jericho, called "the city of palm trees", and Deborah's place of judgment in Judges. Joel 1:12 lists them among the land's agricultural blessings. Psalm 92:12 uses the tree for moral uprightness: "The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree". Song of Songs 7:8 compares physical beauty to the tree's form. Carved palm motifs decorated Solomon's Temple according to 1 Kings 6:29, 32 and 35. They also appear in Ezekiel's vision of the restored temple, at Ezekiel 41:18-20. Beyond the texts, palm designs survive in stone capitals and pilasters at Hazor, Megiddo, Samaria, Dan and Ramat Rahel.

  The palm became a broader emblem of Judea and its people. It appears on Jewish coinage, in sculpture on the Second Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, and in synagogue sculpture. At Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, the lulav is a closed date palm frond waved during prayers as one of the Four Species. Palm leaves also serve as s'chach, the natural roofing laid over a sukkah, the temporary outdoor hut. Christians use date palm leaves on Palm Sunday.

  In the Quran, Allah instructs Maryam, the Virgin Mary, to eat dates during labour pains when she gives birth to Isa, or Jesus. In Islamic culture, dates and yogurt or milk are traditionally the first foods eaten at Iftar after sunset during Ramadan.

  In Ancient Rome, the palm fronds that symbolised victory in triumphal processions were most likely those of P. dactylifera. The tree was a popular plant in Roman peristyle gardens, though it would not bear fruit in the cooler climate of Italy. It can be recognised in frescoes from Pompeii and elsewhere in Italy, including a garden scene from the House of the Wedding of Alexander.

  In Mandaeism, the date palm is called sindirka, a Mandaic word that can mean both the tree and its fruit. It symbolises the cosmic tree and is often associated with the cosmic wellspring, called aina. The palm is linked with masculinity and the wellspring with femininity, and Mandaean texts often mention the two together as heavenly symbols.

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