Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) in the Mediterranean

[nexxogen]

Hello.

I have a question about date palms. I live in Bar, Montenegro, which is on the east coast of the Adriatic sea. It has a Mediterranean subtropical climate with hot, dry summers and mild, humid winters. The daily low temperature in the coldest months rarely goes below freezing (about 2 or 3 times a year). Date palms are growing everywhere and are producing tons of fruit, but the fruit never ripens. The dates grow to about the size of average olives, and are rock hard. When you cut into them, there's practically no flesh inside, only the skin covering the seed. You can see how the fruit looks in the photo below. On some trees, it turns yellow, on some other it's somewhere between red and brown. This photo was taken in June, so I assume they are green because of that. Date palms like this one grow everywhere on the Montenegrin coastline.

My question is, could it be that the trees we have are of some variety that doesn't produce edible fruit, and if not then why can't the dates grow and ripen properly?

 

[Stelios]

Welcome to PT. I believe this is a Canary date palm. This is a date dactylifera (photo is from the beach here at home in Paphos).

[Laaz]

It also could be Phoenix theophrasti.

[Monòver]

Like Stelios says, it is canarian date palms and the dates are not edible.

[Laaz]

Quite blue for a CIDP isn't it?

[gyuseppe]

the trunk is wide enough to be a Phoenix dactylifera

 

[nexxogen]

Thanks everyone for your answers. This one is small, but here are some larger trees that grow in my town, as you can see on the picture below. Maybe you'll be able to identify it easier. Also, do you know of any Mediterranean country where  Phoenix dactylifera can produce fruit normally?

P.S. 

Sorry for the spamming with images, but I don't know how to make them smaller.

Edited March 16, 2017 by nexxogen

[Monòver]

I am sure they are Phoenix canariensis.

And of course, in Spain, in the place where i am living (Elche) we have Phoenix dactilyferas with edible fruits since 2000 years ago.

And may be in South Italy and Greece.

[nexxogen]

Thank you. I've read that Phoenix Dactylifera palms can withstand temeperatures down to -11 °C, which is about the same for Canariensis. But I've also read about damage that cold weather can do to these trees, so I'm not sure what to believe. Do you think it would be possible to successfully fruit Dactyliferas in my climate?

[Monòver]

Canary palms are hardyer than dactyliferas. I think with -11°C a dactylifera will be death and canariensis will has great damage with 100% of the leaves cold burned.

Dactyliferas needs warm autumm to ripe fruits, i don't know if your city has enough warm weather.

And of course, you need one male and one female palm and thousands bees.

Edited March 16, 2017 by Monòver

[Pal Meir]

3 hours ago, Monòver said:

And of course, in Spain, in the place where i am living (Elche) we have Phoenix dactilyferas with edible fruits since 2000 years ago.

Elche 1985 :

[Phoenikakias]

5 hours ago, nexxogen said:

Thanks everyone for your answers. This one is small, but here are some larger trees that grow in my town, as you can see on the picture below. Maybe you'll be able to identify it easier. Also, do you know of any Mediterranean country where  Phoenix dactylifera can produce fruit normally?

P.S. 

Sorry for the spamming with images, but I don't know how to make them smaller.

Don't you follow palmapedia.org?!  If you do, then you will find pictures from dates and seeds produced in Athens, Greece. In warmer parts of Greece date production should be more massive, though not in a commercial extent.

[nexxogen]

13 hours ago, Monòver said:

Canary palms are hardyer than dactyliferas. I think with -11°C a dactylifera will be death and canariensis will has great damage with 100% of the leaves cold burned.

Dactyliferas needs warm autumm to ripe fruits, i don't know if your city has enough warm weather.

And of course, you need one male and one female palm and thousands bees.

I would not know what constitutes as 'warm enough'. People usually swim in the sea here well into October, sometimes even November. The only month when there's a realistic chance for temperatures to drop below 0 is January, and it happens on only a couple of nights, and not colder that  -1 or -2. This year there was that cold air wave that came down from the north of Europe and brought snow to places like Athens, so the low temperatures in my town got below 0 for a couple of days, down to maybe -6, but that really wasn't normal.

Also, bees aren't a problem at all.

So when you say "warm enough" what exactly do you mean?

[nexxogen]

13 hours ago, Phoenikakias said:

Don't you follow palmapedia.org?!  If you do, then you will find pictures from dates and seeds produced in Athens, Greece. In warmer parts of Greece date production should be more massive, though not in a commercial extent.

Thanks, I'll check it out.

[Mohsen]

I think also dry weather is a must for dates  to be ripened ...if there will be too much rain and there will be no or poor production ( The highest maximum temperatures found in the date growing areas of the world are the result of low humidity, great insolation and long days in summer.

We have huge ( perhaps the biggest) date production in south of Iran :

[nexxogen]

We'll, here winters are pretty rainy, but summers are pretty dry with temperatures over 30 degrees in July and August. I'm not hoping for any kind of a commercial production or anything like that, because that's certainly not possible. I would just like to have a tree that produces for me and my family if possible.

[Paranormal]

https://www.datcadetay.com/endemik-datca-hurmasi.html