The Propagation of the Date 



RALPH D. CORNELL* 

 POMONA COLLEGE 



The propagation of the edible date in the arid, southwestern regions 

 of the United States is an industry that has but recently been put upon a 

 commercial basis, although the United States Department of Agriculture 

 made its first importation of date palms about twenty-five years ago. The 

 area in which this palm will thrive and mature fruit is necessarily limited 

 in this country because of the intense heat that is required for the several 

 months preceding and during the ripening of the crop; so that the industry 

 seems now to be confined to a few localities such as the Colorado Desert 

 region, the Chuckawalla country and Palo Verde mesa, the Imperial Valley, 

 Yuma, Arizona, and regions about Phoenix and the Salt River Valley. The 

 results obtained from seedlings and imported plants tested in these regions 

 have been so .satisfactory and highly profitable that private companies and 

 individuals have gone into the rearing and growing of dates on a sufficiently 

 large scale to eliminate doubt as to the future magnitude of the indu.stry. 

 They are already beginning to propagate their own plants. And this pha.se 

 of date growing will naturally increase as the orchards from which propa- 

 gating material can be drawn, increase. 



If propagation is attempted from seeds, about one-half of the seedling 

 plants will be male palms and practically valueless; for the male palm does 

 not bear fruit. And since one male palm will suffice to pollinate the flower 

 clusters of an acre of female plants, it becomes necessary to destroy about 

 forty-nine out of every fifty of these male plants that have required months of 

 care and attention before their sex could be determined. This method is, there- 

 fore, obviously wasteful and expensive. On the other hand, of the possible 

 forty or fifty female palms that will be obtainable from a hundred seedlings, 

 there may be but three or four, and .sometimes only one, that is of a quality 

 sufficiently fine to make it worthy of con.sideration for commercial purposes. 

 (Opinion varies so that no definite number can be given. Some claim that 

 as high as ten pei: cent, of the females will produce good fruit). All of the 

 remaining female plants bear fruit that is of a quality inferior to this and 

 of as many different characteristics as there are different seedlings from 

 which to pick fruit, since the seedling date sports very decidedly, this 

 tendency varying in degree somewhat with the variety of seeds planted. It 

 is thus seen that from a possible hundred seeds, but a very few palms bear 

 desirable fruit ; and these would very probably be so different in flavor, color, 

 size and other characteristics that they could not be standardized as eom- 



*Mr. Cornell has spent some considerable time among the date orchards of Southern 

 California during the last two years. 



