Date Palm cultivation in Dharmapuri Special cover story
Date Palm cultivation in
Dharmapuri -
Special cover story
பேரீச்சை வளர்ப்பு
Phoenix dactylifera Date palm
Phoenix dactylifera (date or date palm is a flowering plant species in the palm family Arecaceae, cultivated for its edible sweet fruit. Although its place of origin is unknown because of long cultivation, it probably originated from lands around
Iraq. The species is widely cultivated and is reportedly naturalized in
Australia,
Spain,
Italy,
North Africa, the
Canary Islands,
Madeira,
Cape Verde, the
Sahel region of
Africa,
Mauritius,
Réunion,
Afghanistan,
Pakistan (
Khairpur),
Bangladesh,
India,
Israel,
Iran,
China, (
Fujian,
Guangdong,
Guangxi,
Yunnan),
Fiji,
New Caledonia, the
United States (
California,
Nevada,
Arizona,
Florida, Puerto Rico), northern
Mexico,
El Salvador, the
Leeward Islands, the
Cayman Islands,
Haiti, and the
Dominican Republic.
Phoenix dactylifera grows 70–75 feet (21–23 m) in height, growing singly or forming a clump with several stems from a single root system. The leaves are 4–6 metres (13–20 ft) long, with spines on the petiole, and pinnate, with about
150 leaflets; the leaflets are 30 cm (12 in) long and 2 cm (0.79 in) wide. The full span of the crown ranges from 6–
10 m (20–33 ft).
The species name dactylifera "date-bearing" comes from
Ancient Greek dáktulos "date" (also "finger") and the stem of the
Greek verb ferō "I bear".
History of dates
Dates have been a staple food of the
Middle East and the
Indus Valley for thousands of years. They are believed to have originated around Iraq, and have been cultivated since ancient times from
Mesopotamia to prehistoric
Egypt, possibly as early as
4000 BCE.
The Ancient Egyptians used the fruits to make date wine, and ate them at harvest. There is archaeological evidence of date cultivation in eastern
Arabia in
6000 BCE. (Alvarez-Mon
2006).
There is also archeological evidence of date cultivation in
Mehrgarh around
7000 BCE, a Neolithic civilization in what is now western
Pakistan. Evidence of cultivation is continually found throughout later civilizations in the Indus Valley, including the Harappan period 2600 to
1900 BCE.
In later times, traders spread dates around
South West Asia, northern Africa, and Spain. Dates were introduced into Mexico and California by the
Spaniards in 1765, around
Mission San Ignacio.
A date palm cultivar, known as
Judean date palm is renowned for its long-lived orthodox seed, which successfully sprouted after accidental storage for
2000 years. This particular seed is presently reputed to be the oldest viable seed but the upper survival time limit of properly stored seeds remains unknown.
Fossil records show that the date palm has existed for at least 50 million years.
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