Phoenix dactylifera -What kind of dates you eat?

[chayote]

Remember to save seeds and plant them, planting seeds can select your favourite breed, then use sucker for vegetative propagation

[chayote]

Maybe Palm members can post your date seeds to here

[Danilopez89]

www.shieldsdategarden.com

This place is 3 miles from my house.

Check it out!!!

I eat my dates on a burger...

This place is awesome! They have a nice biblical theme trail to walk and learn and the trail is nicely decorated with date palms.

[Tyrone]

Because coast road palm owner tell me that sucker/offshoot doesn't work well in perth due to the weather, the one from seeds shows better resistance to the bad climate

Umm. What?? Perth is perfect for P dactylifera. What would be real hard (impossible actually) is trying to get any form of foreign import of P dactylifera offshoots through Australian quarantine. It could be done at great expense in a quarantine grow on facility run by Biosecurity Australia, but unless you are a commercial grower you wouldn't even entertain it. I doubt Coast Rd palms even has access to actual named P dactylifera offshoots. WA has no commercial date palm industry to get them from. From what I know the biggest supplier of named variety offshoots is the Middle East, California, and maybe Spain, all foreign and basically off limits to us hobbyists.

[chayote]

yes, so thats why seed is the only option due to quarantine. Maybe tissue culture is possible for date palm

I still wait the seeds germinate, and I transfer them to pot for growth once they spout.

[Tyrone]

I think for us, seed is fine. Unless you want to start a large scale commercial date farm there is no need to get in true to variety offshoots from Iran or Egypt. A bit of genetic variance is fun anyway.

Just a few months ago there was an article in the news about a new type of date palm variety found in Alice Springs which produces a copious amount of pollen in the male versions compared to other known cultivars. For commercial production this is a break through as you have to plant a number of males in a commercial operation to get good fruit, which take up space that fruiting females would. With a copious pollen producer you can reduce the number of male plants per hectare and replace with female plants potentially increasing production per hectare. But for ornamental growing hobbyists, that's no real advantage anyway.

[Howeadypsis]

Dates on a burger?

[Danilopez89]

Dates on a burger?

Yes. It was my first time trying it. I liked it, it was definitely different. It had sautéed dates, blue cheese, and smoked bacon. Mildly sweet burger.

[bubba]

Al,Grant and DC, Are you all talking about that same place off the main highway near Indio where you have Date Shakes near the Date Orchards and other citrus trees? If so, I had my first Date Shake there when I was about 14. That was a long time ago and I hope it is still there. Unfortunately, not likely to survive development in that area.

[Howeadypsis]

Yuk, no thanks

[chayote]

If you know Middle East people, then you can get dates easily

[Alicehunter2000]

Thread needs more pictures....here's a Medjool about 5 years from store seed ....would have been bigger but got setback from transplanting at beginning of summer.

[Howeadypsis]

Very nice!

[chayote]

Maybe you will get fruit after more years

[chayote]

Maybe you will get fruit after more years

[chayote]

http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/date-palm-grown-2000-year-old-seed-dad.html

Date palm grown from 2,000-year-old seed is a dad

Break out the cigars! Long the only lonely representative of its kind, the Judean palm in now reproducing and giving researchers a unique glimpse back in time.

Talk about perseverance, not to mention the mastery of nature’s design when it comes to plants. Decades ago a 2,000-year-old seed was plucked from an archaeological excavation near the Dead Sea. After many years lingering in a researcher's drawer in Tel Aviv, Elaine Solowey, director of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies at Kibbutz Ketura in Israel, decided to give germination a go. Ten years later, and “Methuselah” (why don’t all plants have names?) is thriving. And not only thriving, but reproducing. Mazel tov!

Methuselah is a Judean date palm, a variety that was wiped out sometime in the 6th century, making the lonely male long the only one of its kind. Genetic testing reveal that Methuselah is closely related to an ancient variety of date palm from Egypt called Hayany – which corresponds with the legend indicating that dates came to Israel with the Exodus, Solowey says.

"It is pretty clear that Methuselah is a western date from North Africa rather than from Iraq, Iran, Babylon," she tells National Geographic. "You can't confirm a legend, of course."

But she can confirm that the maturing palm, which in now 10 years old, can procreate.

"He is a big boy now. He is over three meters [ten feet] tall, he's got a few offshoots, he has flowers, and his pollen is good," Solowey says. "We pollinated a female with his pollen, a wild female, and yeah, he can make dates."

Solowey continues to work with palms and has grown other date palms from ancient seeds found in archeological sites around the Dead Sea, as well.

"I'm trying to figure out how to plant an ancient date grove," she says. And if she can reach her magical green thumb back into time and succeed in bringing forth a modern grove of ancient trees, it might provide for a unique insight into history.

"We would know what kind of dates they ate in those days and what they were like,” she says. “That would be very exciting."

[dalmatiansoap]

Hoping to get my hands on some Black Sphinx this year.

Are they available online?

[Phoenikakias]

Dates on a burger?

In Tunesia desert nomads produce from dates an excelent liquor, superb for cocktails. Unfortunately I was not able to find any for sale in Tunis.Apparently it has to be made and distributed only in the Sahara desert away from the eyesight of religious zombis.

Yes. It was my first time trying it. I liked it, it was definitely different. Ihad sautéed dates, blue cheese, and smoked bacon. Mildly sweet burger.

[_Keith]

Hoping to get my hands on some Black Sphinx this year.

Are they available online?

They will be available next month, very limited supply, and won't last long.

http://www.sphinxdateranch.com/black-sphinx-dates-arizona

[Xerarch]

Hoping to get my hands on some Black Sphinx this year.

Are they available online?

They will be available next month, very limited supply, and won't last long.

http://www.sphinxdateranch.com/black-sphinx-dates-arizona

I tried some in Arizona, they were good, very soft, in fact they were being refrigerated instead of sitting out in the open air like all the others.

[chayote]

Maybe you can shows the picture after you eat

[Kris]

Nice topic and even i love date palms.My son loves Kimia dates from gulf.

very sweet though to my liking.

thanks for the visuals.

Love,

kris.

[Danilopez89]

CIDP dates in my front yard. I just tried some because my son was asking me about them. I never knew that these are eatable. Not the best. Does anyone else eat these?

[chayote]

Actually, all Phoenix spp fruit can be eaten, while most tasty one is dactylifera , other Phoenix? I don't eat their fruit, I just collect their seeds

[Phoenikakias]

Yet fruits from Phoenix porphyrocarpa are equally tasty like real dates when completely ripe. It is only that former are smaller with considerably less pulp.

Edited August 19, 2015 by Phoenikakias

[Ben in Norcal]

What do these Black Sphinx date trees look like? What would stop one growing these outside of Arizona?

[Ken Johnson]

I will pick and eat ANY ripe Phoenix fruit. They are always "good". I also have tried all cocosoid palms I have ever had the chance to, they are also nice. Peach palm is excellent, Bactris gasipies.

[chayote]

wow, you are so brave, you eat all phoenix fruits!

[_Keith]

What do these Black Sphinx date trees look like? What would stop one growing these outside of Arizona?

Ben, as I appreciate it, they are a hybrid and due to the age of the trees, there is no more offshoot production from which to clone new ones. Here are some interesting articles about them. However, if enough people grew the seeds, not all, but some should come true to the parent. Anyway its fun, and after consuming I will sure be planting out my seeds.

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/arts/the-mysterious-date-palms-of-phoenix-6582888

http://www.asu.edu/fm/documents/arboretum/DatePalm_BlackSphinxArticle.pdf

[Ben in Norcal]

What do these Black Sphinx date trees look like? What would stop one growing these outside of Arizona?

Ben, as I appreciate it, they are a hybrid and due to the age of the trees, there is no more offshoot production from which to clone new ones. Here are some interesting articles about them. However, if enough people grew the seeds, not all, but some should come true to the parent. Anyway its fun, and after consuming I will sure be planting out my seeds.

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/arts/the-mysterious-date-palms-of-phoenix-6582888

http://www.asu.edu/fm/documents/arboretum/DatePalm_BlackSphinxArticle.pdf

Well, I'd like to try and grow some out myself! Looks like the dates aren't available yet tho.

[Tyrone]

I'd love to try some seeds of the Black Sphinx variety. Who cares if they don't come up true. Some will. I wonder if RPS will ever consider distributing the seed worldwide. I'm intrigued by this type of date being eaten fresh not dried. That would be a new experience for many people.

[Xerarch]

What do these Black Sphinx date trees look like? What would stop one growing these outside of Arizona?

Ben, as I appreciate it, they are a hybrid and due to the age of the trees, there is no more offshoot production from which to clone new ones. Here are some interesting articles about them. However, if enough people grew the seeds, not all, but some should come true to the parent. Anyway its fun, and after consuming I will sure be planting out my seeds.

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/arts/the-mysterious-date-palms-of-phoenix-6582888

http://www.asu.edu/fm/documents/arboretum/DatePalm_BlackSphinxArticle.pdf

Nice articles, I had mentioned earlier in this post that the Black Sphinx dates that I had purchased were refrigerated, now I know why.

[chayote]

Here is a Taiwanese website which sell their dates (In Chinese Language), I can translate it later if anyone needed

http://www.chilihunter.url.tw/date/good_tree.html

[Phoenikakias]

Anybody knows whether Black Sphynx has ever been exported in Europe as a delicacy? Reason I ask is that I found once In Munich Germany in a delicacy shop a small basket with candied dates from the USA. Never found them again. Mostly dates in Germany used to be back then from Tunesia and of the variety deglet noor. I managed to grow a plant from those usa-dates, which looks so but so different than other date palms. It has a stout trunk, shorter, bluer leaves, a very intense caespitose habit, shorter acanthophylls, and leaflets , when plant was younger, had guite sharp tips. It has proved male and in comparison to deglet noor variety it produces A LOT more inflorescences starting to bloom every year also about half a month earlier than deglet noor. The male inflorescences are half the size of those of deglet noor.

[dalmatiansoap]

I believe they will stay out of Europe still for some time. Shipping of single pound is 80$!!! So if any of you will have a few Black Sphynx extra pits....

@chayote what variety is that?

[_Keith]

I bought a bag of Deglet Nour dates off the sales rack at Big Lots. Since I am only a so-so fan of dates to start with, I was more excited to get the seeds. At first I was disappointed to find out the seeds had been removed, but then I tasted them. Most incredibly good dates I have ever eaten. I am now a date eater whenever I find them.

[chayote]

How long can dates can be stored in fridge?

[RemiMontreal2015]

Hi everybody.

I planted a seed from an (unknown species) date several years ago (at least 15 years ago). At that time I was leaving in France. I have attached a picture of what the palm tree looked like 5 years ago (I gave it to my grandma as a young seedling). She had a greenhouse and could make everything grow...

Now I am in Montreal (Qc, Canada) and I keep growing indoor everything I can in this cold climate....

I have also attached a picture of date palm seedlings that took less than 30 days to germinate. (sorry iphone pic)

I am a big date eater (before I hit the gym!) and I always plant them (at least 15 per container). then I share the seedings with my friends! We will see if they can beat the palm tree my grandma was able to grow!

I think the secret for date plam is to provide high heat for germination. The type of soil doesn't seem to matter. High humidity at the begining helps a lot but it has to get drier when the first leaf appears.

This is my experience with phoenix dactylifera !

[Alistair123]

I really do not like dates. They're often dry, extremley chewy and upset my stomach.

But it is highly recommended to eat it. I used to be forced to eat it when I was younger but i've refused it for a few years now.

[Phoenikakias]

Probe only fresh dates of different varieties and if possible at different maturity stage. You will be surprised how different taste can be! I think I know what you mean; dried dates are not of your taste(for me neither), like probably also dried apricots or figs or grapes...