DATE 



969 



1225. An American 

 seedling date. 



the fruit. The amount of water for each palm depends so 

 much upon soil and local conditions that an estimate 

 would be worthless. Care should be taken not to irrigate 

 to excess at the time of blooming and immediately after, 

 as it will militate against the successful setting of the 

 fruit. The date seems to enjoy not 

 only a high atmospheric tempera- 

 ture, but a high temperature of the 

 water supplied in irrigation as well. 

 In irrigating small crops by flood- 

 ing, it is necessary in midsummer 

 to irrigate late in the afternoon or 

 at night in order to prevent scald- 

 ing. Care should be taken, in the 

 hotter part of the year, that the 

 date palm is not subjected to hot 

 water about the roots, rising above 

 the soil for a considerable length of 

 time, and later left until the soil 

 becomes exceedingly dry and baked 

 by the sun. Such extremes some- 

 times seriously injure or destroy 

 the tree. 



The date palm comes into bearing 

 early, examples being known in Cali- 

 fornia of fruits being produced two 

 years after the seeds were planted. 

 It usually requires six to eight years, 

 however, for seedlings to bear any 

 considerable quantity of dates. Under the best date- 

 culture, seedlings are not used but the plants are propa- 

 gated by means of suckers, as already explained; these 

 suckers soon become established and will bear abun- 

 dantly in five or six years afterwards. After ten or 

 fifteen years, the palm may be considered to be in 

 full bearing and should continue to produce indef- 



} initely. It should yield 100 to 200 pounds of fruit 



annually, although there" ""are cases -of wry much 

 higher yields than this. To conserve the strength of 

 the parent plant, the suckers should not be allowed 

 to grow around the base in large numbers. Usually 

 not more than three or four of these suckers or 

 offshoots are allowed to remain at any one time. 

 After the palm is in full bearing and has a trunk a 

 few feet high, the offshoots cease to be produced. It 

 is recommended, however, that one offshoot be left 

 attached to the mother plant in order to replace the 

 tree in case of an accident. If the date palm is allowed 

 to grow as it will, it becomes a clump of many trunks, 

 surrounded by a jungle of offshoots. 



It is advised that the date palm be planted at 

 distances of not less than^26Jio_33^feet. Other crops 

 can be grown between the trees till they come into 

 bearing heavily, or even continuously. 



Under proper cultivation, the date palm should 

 produce from ten to fourteen leaves each year. A 

 well-developed tree will have at one time from thirty 

 to sixty leaves, the old ones dying away below while 

 new ones are forming at the top. The different varie- 

 ties show great variation in rapidity of growth, form 

 and length of leaves, size of stem, and general aspect 

 of plant. The stem of the date palm is very rigid. 

 When the stem reaches a height of 5 or more feet it is 

 L-^ frequently necessary to tie the growing bunches of 

 dates securely to the lower leaf -stalks, that they be 

 not broken and injured by the wind before maturity. 



While it is possible to produce dates by depending 

 on wind-pollination from male to female trees, this 

 process is much too uncertain for commercial culture 

 and requires a very large number of male trees. In 

 commercial plantations, one male tree to 100 females 

 is sufficient; but this requires that the pollinating shall 

 be performed by hand. Small separate twigs or branch- 

 lets of the male inflorescence, from 4 to (5 inches long 

 and bearing thirty to fifty flowers, aro tied on the 

 female cluster. Inasmuch as the .flowers in the female 



cluster mature at different times, it is necessary to 

 repeat the operation of pollination. In old plantings, 

 persons must climb the trees in order to perform this 

 operation, but for the first ten or fifteen years of bear- 

 ing the clusters are so near the ground that little if 

 any climbing is required. Each female flower pro- 

 duces three ovaries. After pollination, two of these 

 ovaries fail and one matures into the date. In case 

 there is no pollination, all three of the ovaries will 

 develop but will be seedless and the fruit will be inferior. 



As with other fruits, it is often necessary to thin the 

 dates on trees, particularly on young trees that tend to 

 overbear. Even on old trees, best results are to be 

 secured if only eight or ten bunches are left. 



Usually the dates in an entire bunch do not ripen at 

 the same time. Picking off the dates as they ripen is a 

 practicable operation when labor is cheap. In general, 

 however, it probably will be found the better plan to 

 cut the entire bunch at once. This may require some 

 special operation in the handling and curing. Some 

 varieties require practically no special handling or cur- 

 ing and are ready to ship as soon as they have ripened 

 naturally. Usually, however, the bunch must be ripened 

 much as a bunch of bananas is cured, by being cut off 

 and hung in a moist and warm place. It has been 

 found that in Arizona the best varieties of dates may 

 not ripen naturally on the tree. Freeman's experi- 

 ments at the Arizona Experiment Station show that 

 conditions favorable for the rapid . ripening of the 

 Deglet Noor may be produced artificially in an oven. 

 The degree of moisture and temperature may be carefully 

 regulated. In this ripening process, there is not only a 

 change in the sugar-con- 

 tent but the tissues of 

 the date are softened, 

 the tanin is precipitated 

 and the astringency of 

 the fruit is thereby 

 relieved. Vinson found 

 that dates may be 

 ripened artificially by 

 means of chemical re- 

 agents. Artificial ripen- 

 ing by means of heat, 

 moisture, and chemical 

 stimulation makes pos- 

 sible the production of 

 commercial crops at alti- 

 tudes too high and cool 

 to mature many medium 

 and late varieties. Losses 

 by rain, insects, and 

 birds are minimized, and 

 greater cleanliness se- 

 cured. Last year over 

 half the crop from miscel- 

 laneous varieties 'at the 

 Tempe Date Orchard 

 (Arizona) would have 

 been lost but for artificial 

 methods of ripening. 

 These methods are cheap 

 and practicable. In con- 

 nection with ripening 

 operations, the fruit can 

 be pasteurized at a tem- 

 perature of 65 to 70 

 C (149-158F.) and 

 then packed under 

 cheese-cloth to secure 

 it from contamination by flies and other insects. 

 Recent experiments by Drummpnd show that fumi- 

 gation with carbon bisulfide kills insect eggs, and 

 is preferable to pasteurization with varieties inclined 

 to be sticky. In 1910, Swingle discovered the pro- 

 cess now in use for ripening Deglet Noor dates by 



1226. Fruit clusters of date, as 

 grown in Arizona. 



