Medjool Hobby Orchard / Tissue culture

[ZPalms]

So is tissue culture for dates just to have clones of a specific palm?

[mydateplams]

You can tissue culture a lot of plants but for palms you can clone the best ones and not wait for the offshoot to grow.  One palm can make millions of explants.

So if you are starting a farm you would buy 1-2k cultured plants and they are all the same.

The money is the work it takes to harden the plant from the tube to the field. 

https://www.phoenixagrotech.com/lab/

https://www.ranchotissue.com/laboratory-tour/

[mydateplams]

Picture update. I had my tree cleaned and pollinated and de-throned. I planted 50 more Medjools. I have 150 Medjools, 40 zahedi , 5 Barhi.

About 1500 pounds of Medjool are on the way.

Just to give an idea. ita $400 one gal of pollen and $12 each tree to clean,

 

[ahosey01]

What's your water usage per palm during fruiting?

[mydateplams]

This is my rough guess. I water every other day for an hour. Each tree has one or two 10 GPH drip heads but I'm not pushing that much water.   Maybe 600-700gal every other day. That's about 3.5gal a tree. So in one month about 10,000-10,000 gallons.  This is low and will go up as it heats up here. It's still really cool out in the 80's.

I'm starting an LLC and I hope to get a small business loan for a well.  A well is around $50k

 

 

 

 

[ahosey01]

1 hour ago, mydateplams said:

This is my rough guess. I water every other day for an hour. Each tree has one or two 10 GPH drip heads but I'm not pushing that much water.   Maybe 600-700gal every other day. That's about 3.5gal a tree. So in one month about 10,000-10,000 gallons.  This is low and will go up as it heats up here. It's still really cool out in the 80's.

I'm starting an LLC and I hope to get a small business loan for a well.  A well is around $50k

 

 

 

 

Get yourself a copy of The Date Palm and its Utilization in the Southwestern States by Walter Swingle.  Dude goes into grave detail regarding the water requirements at large-scale farms in the Sahara and Arabian Peninsula.

I would expect that when your palms are mature and fruiting you should expect to use well over 100 gallons per palm per day for a quality yield.  How many males do you have?

[mydateplams]

The date palm and its utilization in the southwestern states,.pdf

I shared a copy of the book.

I just planted 5 males this week on the north side of the field. The wind blows from the West to the East. This year I bought 1 gallon of pollen @ $400.  Some of my best knowledge has been working alongside the Palmero workers that I have hired and have befriended.

I have been taught how to identify the different types of date palms, how to cut the chutes out, how to de-throne, and also how to pollinate. I did not know to mix 50% pollen with 50% baking flower.

Over the last year I have bought over 1000 bags for the dates, drying trays, different types of tools, etc, and almost bought a walk-in freezer but going to hold off till I get closer.

I have 15 acres that I have about 2.5 -3 acres now planted but my goal is to plant the rest of the 15 acres. 

My field length is 350ft wide so to irrigate 3 rows. 3 rows is 33 tress runs about $700 in tubing, emitters, etc. 

I have as attached an invoice for three rows. 

 Order Details.pdf

[ahosey01]

5 minutes ago, mydateplams said:

The date palm and its utilization in the southwestern states,.pdf 19.02 MB · 0 downloads

I shared a copy of the book.

I just planted 5 males this week on the north side of the field. The wind blows from the West to the East. This year I bought 1 gallon of pollen @ $400.  Some of my best knowledge has been working alongside the Palmero workers that I have hired and have befriended.

I have been taught how to identify the different types of date palms, how to cut the chutes out, how to de-throne, and also how to pollinate. I did not know to mix 50% pollen with 50% baking flower.

Over the last year I have bought over 1000 bags for the dates, drying trays, different types of tools, etc, and almost bought a walk-in freezer but going to hold off till I get closer.

I have 15 acres that I have about 2.5 -3 acres now planted but my goal is to plant the rest of the 15 acres. 

My field length is 350ft wide so to irrigate 3 rows. 3 rows is 33 tress runs about $700 in tubing, emitters, etc. 

I have as attached an invoice for three rows. 

  Order Details.pdf 1.04 MB · 0 downloads

I believe Arther Futterman in Indio decided early last year to sell his farm and move to Texas.  I don't know how far he ever got, but I know he generally has tons of Barhi offshoots, and a bunch of other unusual varieties (including Honey, my personal favorite).

Let me know if you want some contact info and I can PM you.

[mydateplams]

4 minutes ago, ahosey01 said:

I believe Arther Futterman in Indio decided early last year to sell his farm and move to Texas.  I don't know how far he ever got, but I know he generally has tons of Barhi offshoots, and a bunch of other unusual varieties (including Honey, my personal favorite).

Let me know if you want some contact info and I can PM you.

To sell anything over 25k pounds of dates you need to be a member of the California Date Commission which they set the price per pound and also do marketing and inspections, etc. I have recently signed up to be a member but I'm still a little early

https://datesaregreat.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/4-16-24-CDC-Marketing-Agenda.pdf

He is still doing business - https://futtermanfarms.com/  here is one of his videos. 

 

 

 

[mydateplams]

11 minutes ago, ahosey01 said:

I believe Arther Futterman in Indio decided early last year to sell his farm and move to Texas.  I don't know how far he ever got, but I know he generally has tons of Barhi offshoots, and a bunch of other unusual varieties (including Honey, my personal favorite).

Let me know if you want some contact info and I can PM you.

A Barhi Chute goes for $250 - 300 each. The reason for this is they do not produce as many chutes compared to a Medjool.  I just bought 5.

[mydateplams]

Hello for those who are following along here is an update.

I'm now at a 164 trees planted and about 100 are fruiting this season and have been cleaned, dethroned, pollinated. You can see the flowers go from green before they open up to a yellow then to a orange.

 It has been really windy this year and I wish I had paper bagged the bunches to protect the fruit. The wind has knocked off a lot. When they blow around and hit the fronds it weakens them and they full off.

Next step is to bag them. I have bags made just for this its like a cheesecloth withdrawal strings. 

[mydateplams]

Hello everyone. So after years of hard work, I have been able to harvest my first crop and have fresh dates for sale - Desert Sun Dates

 

[Hu Palmeras]

El 24/4/2024 a las 20:56, mydateplams dijo:

Actualización de la foto. Limpié, polinicé y destruí mi árbol. Planté 50 Medjools más. Tengo 150 Medjools, 40 zahedi y 5 Barhi.

Alrededor de 1500 libras de Medjool están en camino.

Sólo para dar una idea, cuesta $400 un galón de polen y $12 limpiar cada árbol.

What beautiful date palms, my friend. I love them so much. You're incredibly lucky.

 

[mydateplams]

[mydateplams]

[Hu Palmeras]

I love the Medjool palm. I managed to germinate many seeds. It's a royal palm, from the land of royalty and the peoples of the Middle East. I like it very much.

[mydateplams]

These were taken 5/2/26 and will be the new crop coming in. Looks to be around 1500 - 2000 pounds of fruit this year. Still a long way to go before its harvested. Last year I had around 1000 pounds.  The farm plot now will max out around 200 trees and yearly weight in fruit would be around 20,000-30,000 pounds of fruit before I move over to the and start planting the next 10 arecas that will have about 1000 trees. 

Water consumption now is about 2,500 gallons a day.

https://desertsundates.com/

Ideally I would like to find a buyer once a year to just buy everything.

[mnorell]

Your trees look great and obviously very productive, but for your next development...are you only planning on growing Medjool? You have an awful lot of competition out there for this common cultivar, and you might want to consider that there are some really great (to many, superior) but still rare-in-the-U.S. cultivars out there, particularly Barhi (which already commands high prices), Khalas, Khadrawi, Sukkari and others. If you haven't tried them, you should. They can quickly convert a non-date-loving person into a fanatic for some of these rarer types that are like popping a caramel into your mouth. Some growers down in the main date-growing areas around the Salton Sea have really established a niche industry with these cultivars that are gaining popularity very quickly.

[mydateplams]

8 minutes ago, mnorell said:

Your trees look great and obviously very productive, but for your next development...are you only planning on growing Medjool? You have an awful lot of competition out there for this common cultivar, and you might want to consider that there are some really great (to many, superior) but still rare-in-the-U.S. cultivars out there, particularly Barhi (which already commands high prices), Khalas, Khadrawi, Sukkari and others. If you haven't tried them, you should. They can quickly convert a non-date-loving person into a fanatic for some of these rarer types that are like popping a caramel into your mouth. Some growers down in the main date-growing areas around the Salton Sea have really established a niche industry with these cultivars that are gaining popularity very quickly.

Hi mnorell,  and thanks for the question.  I have three types Medjool about 120 trees, 50 Zahidi and 10Barhi, I have just started with Barhi and only have 10 trees. Barhi are expensive to get started with at about $300 each as a Medjool is around $50.  So for one row of 10 trees with irrigation is about $4,500 to start Barhi, My understanding of the Barhi cost is from them not producing as many offshoots compared to Medjools.  I'm all ears on growing one off's like my favorite a Zahidi but it comes down to how do you get 40-50 trees at one time to allow a good start and from whom? I know they have farms but its very difficult and some times they do not like to share and the next obstacle is these types of trees cant be imported.  I'm all for a group effort or even to take advice for what would be the next tree that has interest.    

[mydateplams]

Its about 30-40mins to bag tie down.

[awkonradi]

Do many of your palms have suckers?  Do you separate those to establish new palms?  Your plantation looks great!  Glad to see all your progress!

[mydateplams]

The Medjool produce about 7-8 offshoots that can be separated. They produce more offshoots but some times they grow up above the base and are not useable. These are called one-for-one and are identical to the mother.   When you start a farm you want to find the trees that have the most fruit and take from these as you know the fruit output.  To expand my Mdejool and Zahidi trees I just remove the offshoots and start new rows. 

Its more of a hobby because its such a long term investment and I might never see a return.