Date palms are gorgeous, graceful denizens of coastal and desert lands. They symbolize the mystic of Arabia and are an important cash crop. Dates as a fruit are full of nutrition and one a day can keep many maladies away. But that and their propagation is another post. Let’s learn how to pollinate date palms and why the steps need to be done properly. Date palms are dioecious meaning that each individual tree has a gender-male or female. Another example of this is Papaya. Most other plants are either monoecious or hermaphrodite.
Male date palms are normally rarer and interestingly, their pollen is what defines the kind and quality of dates produced. Birds and bees are not attracted to date flowers and they need to be hand-pollinated. Wind pollination only works if you have a male tree on your farm as well, close to your female ones.
It takes about 4-5 years for a date palm to start flowering. Male flowers are waxy white and female flowers are yellow. That is the best way to identify the gender of your date palms.
Female flowers will need to be thinned out to improve the quality and yield of the fruit. They flower around late February or early March and pollination is best done in the morning when the high humidity helps to activate the pollen.
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The above video will give you an idea of how to do it. Video courtesy Kauser Ismail
Normally, a male spathe is available to buy as well as pollen powder. The most common technique of pollination is to cut the strands of male flowers from a freshly opened male spathe and place two to three of these strands, lengthwise and in an inverted position, between the strands of the female inflorescence after some pollen has been shaken over the female inflorescence. The pollen should be used within 24 hours of the spathe splitting open. If rains are predicted in your area just around the time you need to pollinate, place a paper bag over the flowers after pollination so that the pollen is not washed off. It needs to stay in contact for around 24 hours for the pollination to be successful.
After pollination make sure to do some pest control at the base of the plant so that the beetles don’t destroy your fruit. You also need to hang a bucket containing date paste and the pesticide to keep the pests away from the forming fruit.
After about 5-7 days please make sure you bag the flowers of your palm in net bags to protect the forming dates from birds and other pests.
A final note – expect fruits to mature about 4 months after pollination. Let the fruits ripen on the plant. It does not ripen once you remove it from the tree. So don’t fall for the common misconception.
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