🌴 The fruit somebody pollinates by hand

A date palm is either a male tree or a female tree, and only the female makes fruit. In the wild the wind does the rest of the job: the University of Arizona’s Campus Arboretum says “Pollen is usually wind borne from the male flowers to the females but in cultivation, pollination may be done manually by workers.” An orchard, though, does not gamble on weather. University of California Cooperative Extension, writing down what it actually costs to run a date grove, puts the working rule flatly: “Date palm trees are dioecious, i.e. male and female flowers are in separate trees. Pollination is done manually as there is no natural means of transferring pollen from male plants to female plants.” Read those two sources side by side and you get the real picture: the wind can do it, and no grower is willing to find out whether it will. So a person does it. Male flowers are cut and dried, and “Pollen from the male flowers is separated using specialized equipment (pollen extractor).” Then “The pollen is dusted on cotton balls which are stored in sealed containers at low temperatures … until the female flowers are open.” When the moment comes, “the dusted cotton balls will be inserted manually in the flowering spike,” the spike is tied shut with a rubber band, and a paper bag goes over the whole thing so none of the powder is lost. The dates in the shop got there because somebody climbed up and did that, tree by tree.

Basis: The two Extension sources differ on how date pollen moves in nature, and both are quoted as written. University of Arizona Campus Arboretum, “Phoenix dactylifera”: “Date palms are dioecious – both a male and a female plant are needed to produce fruit.”; “Pollen is usually wind borne from the male flowers to the females but in cultivation, pollination may be done manually by workers.” University of California Cooperative Extension, “Sample Costs to Establish A Date Palm Orchard and Produce Dates in the Coachella Valley, Riverside County, 2005-2006,” Pollination section: “Date palm trees are dioecious, i.e. male and female flowers are in separate trees. Pollination is done manually as there is no natural means of transferring pollen from male plants to female plants.”; “Pollen from the male flowers is separated using specialized equipment (pollen extractor).”; “The pollen is dusted on cotton balls which are stored in sealed containers at low temperatures … until the female flowers are open.”; “Once the female flowers are open, bunches around the flowering spike will be thinned and the dusted cotton balls will be inserted manually in the flowering spike. Then the flowering spike will be closed using a rubber band and paper bags are placed over the entire spike.”

Because the pollen travels by hand, an orchard barely needs any males. The same UC study describes a typical Coachella Valley layout — “30 feet between rows and 30 feet between palms within the row” — which works out to “approximately 49 palm trees planted per acre, one of which is a male plant enough to pollinate 48 female date palms.” One tree in forty-nine grows no fruit at all; its whole job is powder. Nor are these trees grown from seed. The study’s growers buy “Offshoots, for planting, ranging in age from 3 to 5 years old,” cut from palms that already exist — the University of Arizona’s palm guide describes where they come from: “Offshoots may appear at ground level or on the trunk. Trees are male or female, and both sexes must be planted to ensure fruit production.” A date grove, then, is a collection of cuttings, planted already several years old, with one designated male among every forty-nine.

Basis: University of California Cooperative Extension, “Sample Costs to Establish A Date Palm Orchard and Produce Dates in the Coachella Valley, Riverside County, 2005-2006,” Planting section: “Planting spaces in most cases consist of 30 feet x 30 feet (30 feet between rows and 30 feet between palms within the row) allowing approximately 49 palm trees planted per acre, one of which is a male plant enough to pollinate 48 female date palms.”; “Offshoots, for planting, ranging in age from 3 to 5 years old are purchased at about $125 per shoot (price includes to cut the offshoot, transport, and plant).” University of Arizona Cooperative Extension, AZ1021 “Arizona Landscape Palms,” Date Palm (Phoenix dactylifera) entry: “Offshoots may appear at ground level or on the trunk. Trees are male or female, and both sexes must be planted to ensure fruit production.” The 49-trees-per-acre figure is the cost study’s stated assumption for a typical orchard, not a national average.

None of this is quick, either. In the same study’s production assumptions, “Fruit bearing for Deglet Noor is assumed to begin at age 5 with 47 pounds per tree.” After that, “Yield per tree increases at a rate of approximately 45 pounds per year,” and it “may reach 272 pounds per tree in year 10” — then holds there “till the end of the productive period (at around age 40 assumed in our study).” Read that as a calendar. You buy a shoot that is already three to five years old, you wait until year five for a first small crop, and the tree does not hit its stride until year ten. Somebody who plants a date grove is planting for a version of themselves a decade older, and expecting the trees to outlive the decision by thirty years.

Basis: University of California Cooperative Extension, “Sample Costs to Establish A Date Palm Orchard and Produce Dates in the Coachella Valley, Riverside County, 2005-2006,” Production/Yield section: “Fruit bearing for Deglet Noor is assumed to begin at age 5 with 47 pounds per tree. Yield per tree increases at a rate of approximately 45 pounds per year. Yield may reach 272 pounds per tree in year 10 (Table D) and remain the same till the end of the productive period (at around age 40 assumed in our study).” These are the cost study’s stated assumptions for one variety, not measured national yields.

And then there is the rain. Dates ripen in autumn, and in this valley the growers plainly do not want autumn rain landing on the fruit. The UC study lists the defence as a routine cost of doing business: during the fruit-bearing stage, “paper covers (resembling lamp shades) are used to protect the dates from possible rain damage during the fall months and from infestation by sooty black mold during the fall ripening months.” Growers put little hats on their fruit. The ground underneath is desert ground — “The desert soils of the Coachella Valley are sandy with low water holding capacity,” the study notes, which is why every drop of water the trees drink has to be delivered to them on purpose. So the water this crop drinks all arrives by pipe, and the growers pay, every season, to keep the sky off the fruit. Whether that is why the American map of date acres looks the way it does is a separate question, and the next section takes it up honestly.

Basis: University of California Cooperative Extension, “Sample Costs to Establish A Date Palm Orchard and Produce Dates in the Coachella Valley, Riverside County, 2005-2006,” Protection section: “During the fruit-bearing stage, paper covers (resembling lamp shades) are used to protect the dates from possible rain damage during the fall months and from infestation by sooty black mold during the fall ripening months.”; Fertilization section: “The desert soils of the Coachella Valley are sandy with low water holding capacity.”