Dates Ripened (Phoenix Dactylifera) and Cultivation Outside The Worlds Desert Regions

[veeman55]

Is there anyone here or know someone personally that was able to ripen their fruiting Dates in a NON desert region.

Or do you know of date cultivation area Outside of the well known desert regions of the world? For example Southern California coast or East Coast Usa like in North and South Carolina, Alabama, Florida etc, West Coast Usa,  West Coast Europe, West and East Coast Australia, Central America or other.

I do know they tried to cultivate Dates commercially in a location on East Coast of Brazil.

I love dates and would like to grow them someday myself. Long hot low humidity dry summers, proper pollination are key to get the best tasting dates. Avoidance of getting fruit wet during maturation is also important to avoid rotting.

[palmsOrl]

I saw a few fruit on the Phoenix dactylifera in New Orleans when I was there.  New Orleans is at least as humid and significantly wetter than Orlando.

[John in Andalucia]

This makes for good reading: https://www.unce.unr.edu/publications/files/ho/2002/sp0212.pdf

Here are some great stats on the global date industry: http://www.fao.org/3/a-y2745e.pdf

The bottom line is that even in the cooler states where P. dactylifera grow, commercial fruit cultivation is practically impossible. It'd be a fruitless task to even try (pardon the pun!) as it's a fact that many of the date fruit exporting countries in the world simply re-export dates from North Africa and the Middle East. 

 

[veeman55]

As i was reading Some dates like medjool and barhi can handle rain and high humidity so not all need low humidity as its commonly beleived..

deglet noor needs dry no rain low humidity

Edited May 20, 2019 by veeman55
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[veeman55]

Gracias @John in Andalucia 

Andalucia in Carboneras and Cartagena area can produce its own dates if they only take advantage of long dry hot summers. Elche is also famous for its date palms and so is Western Liguria in italy. It had thousands in its garden.

[PalmatierMeg]

Date palms are desert palms. Commercial date production takes place in hot dry climates. While a P. dactylifera may survive in FL's wet, humid climate, it will produce inferior fruit and is not suited to commercial date production. CIDPs are also desert palms that have problems in wet, humid climates.

[UK_Palms]

3 hours ago, PalmatierMeg said:

Date palms are desert palms. Commercial date production takes place in hot dry climates. While a P. dactylifera may survive in FL's wet, humid climate, it will produce inferior fruit and is not suited to commercial date production. CIDPs are also desert palms that have problems in wet, humid climates.

CIDP seem to dislike tropical (hot, wet, humid) climates.  Whereas they seem to do pretty well in temperate areas that also have high rainfall and high humidity (southwestern England, Isles of Scilly, northern Spain, Azores, Auckland NZ etc). None of those places see extremes in summer or winter. But they are all wet and humid year-round, averaging 30-60 inches of rain. When combined with lower temps, it doesn't seem to faze them. CIDP thrives around San Sebastian in northern Spain, where they have 70 inches of rain a year!