Wasn’t looking , but just saw it in my Notes
From Slow Food Movement for Biodiversity
Dour Love your post DO you know much about the ones listed here any that can take Humidity ?
It is a Big list to sort through (page 2 most on page one seemed American )
I have to ask I used to Live in Humid New Orleans now I live in the North ( it is cold -20 F -28 C )
Do you know what date does good in Humidity I picked some down there they are good, dried
but I would like to buy some fruit, and plant seeds
(from one that could handle 90 % humidity good –
one day My guitar sound box warped inward 2 inches I mean really it’s badly humid.)
I don’t know.
but the search indicates to old book by Julia F. Morton, which says that the most moisture-tolerant varieties is Halawy (from Iraq), then some what tolerant like Khastawi, Khadrawy, Thoory and Zahdi (link: https://hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/date.html)
It might be better to stick with the plants that suits your area, high humidity and high cold is outside the normal range of date palms.
but be aware if you want to plant date seeds, the results may be unsatisfactory, if they remain alive, the genes of the unknown male will interfere with the quality of the fruits or their tolerance to moisture, in addition to an unfavourable climate, the fruits may not ripen or rot and so on.
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Also they can be male or female, and they can take decades to fruit if they ever do…
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Thank you Dour I will try to see those , and I will just pick the ones that already grow down there
they should have adapted some, but also thanks I hope these can add something different .
(the tree’s I discovered in New Orleans are new to me so I’ve only ate one time .)
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Call me crazy but I just bought a female Medjool date tree pup. I’m going to start seeds of the same hoping for a male. The warm end of my greenhouse is 95-100F for 8-9 months of the year and no rain. It might work if I have enough patience. It should fruit below 16ft height and casts less shade than a banana.
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Check the girth of mature Medjools.
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According to this report it will be a miracle if a date palm reaches 12-16ft while I’m still lucid enough to care:
It takes about three years for a rooted offshoot to bloom for the first time, when it is around 4 or 5 feet tall. After another year it may have some fruit, but substantial crops don’t come until the offshoot is 5 or 6 years old, or about 6 to 7 feet tall. Fruit yield for 5- to 8-year-old trees is about 22 pounds per tree; for 13-year-old trees the crop is approximately 176 pounds. Trees can reach 20 feet tall, excluding leaves, in 15 to 20 years, depending on growing conditions.
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Just install a roof hatch in the greenhouse above with a sign that says “date escape hatch” on it.
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True. There’s a 10 year old one down the street that is 8 ft tall, fronds extending ~5 ft both sides, caliper ~30" except narrowing near the top to perhaps 16".
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I think I’ve got some chance of growing the Medjool in my greenhouse. It will probably take 6-7 years for first fruit. I’ll plant in the SW corner of the GH. In that spot there should be more days above 90F than in Yuma AZ. The summer heat won’t be as intense but 100F should be enough. Nights will be cooler. Humidity not much different. Less rain, like zero vs 3 inches.
How Medjool are grown: How are Dates Grown? Harvesting Dates at Dateland Date Gardens
I can buy pollen from growers in AZ.
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The last three days in Yuma, where Medjool are grown commercially, have been highs 70-80 and lows near 50. Normal would be about 84/55. My greenhouse the last two months has been about 95/52. Last night 60 and at 9:30 am today it’s 81 just an hour and a half after sunrise. My main concern at this point is that my tree might bloom before theirs making it hard to time up pollination. The beauty of a greenhouse is that I can control temperature and thus bloom date.
I’m about to plant my 16 Medjool seeds. They’ve been soaking in water for two days.
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Medjool is so ubiquitous in USA, why don’t you try Barhi instead? To my taste buds, Barhi is a notch above Medjool.
I looked and couldn’t find a female pup of anything else. Besides Medjool is the biggest and to my taste just as good. I’ve got a sampler pack right now and I like Medjool.
The fruit is available everywhere but not many outside of CA and AZ are growing the tree and getting fruit. I’d like to see the tree and fruit develop. Not many have seen that.
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If you dont have male date palm nearby, you can use canary date palm instead if there were some around.
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There are some palms here but not many. It’s too cold a few nights most years. I’ll look into getting a canary date palm.