Date farmers foresee better production in the year 2013

SANTHOSH CHANDRAN

DOHA COME March, and it will be pollination time for date palm trees (Phoenix dactylifera). Currently, greenish-white flower buds have started appearing on date palm trees, visible all over date farms in Qatar, a beatiful sight, indeed! Talking to Qatar Tribune, the date farm workers in Al Shamal and Al Shahaniya areas said that at this stage the farms needed ‘spraying rain’ accompanied by light wind for a healthy, natural pollination of the trees, which will lead to better production of dates.

A farm worker Sulaiman Shefeer said, “The simultaneous appearance of flower buds on the male and female palm trees has generated hopes amongst us for a better date crop this year.

All that we require at this stage is light, rain coupled with mild winds for natural pollination.” He added, “Pollination is a complex process. Ideally, we should have equal number of male and female palm trees in a farm for perfect pollination to happen, but it is not an advisable option in Qatar as we have to depend on artificial pollination because of an erratic rain pattern.” Shefeer added further, “Besides, male trees do not bear fruit, which harms our commercial interests.

Therefore, we have only one male tree in a group of 25 female date palm trees.

Normally, we have to take recourse to artificial pollination, which will take place after three weeks.” According to Shefeer, in artificial pollination the flowers appearing in the male plant are placed at the centre of the female plants.

Shefeer said that the time of blossoming and pollination varies from tree to tree because of the diverse variety of date palms.

According to the farm workers, the flower buds appear in spring, but start blossoming only in the beginning of summer.

Blossoming takes a month or more depending on the intensity of heat — the hotter the weather, the shorter the blossoming period, the farm workers pointed out.

According to the farmers, high temperature, strong winds and heavy rains damage the flowers, which leads to poor harvest.

It is worth mentioning here that Qatar produces about 16,000 to 20,000 tonnes of dates every year, according to estimates.

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