Tissue culture sweetens labour of date farmers

Al Ain: Tissue culture, a modern cloning technique, has improved the production and quality of date palm trees in the emirates, making the country the fourth largest producer of dates in the world.

The country ranked sixth among the world's largest producers of date several years ago. Now, with a total annual production of 755,000 tonnes, according to UN figures, the UAE has moved upward on the ranking list, Hendrik Johannes Visser, an official at the Plant Tissue Culture Laboratory in Al Ain, said.

Watch video: Growing the perfect date

The laboratory is part of the Date Palm Development Research Unit of the UAE University that introduced the technique in the country in 1993 when it was established with the help of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Tissue culture, an in-vitro technique to grow plants in a nutrient medium under sterile conditions, has been used for the large-scale propagation of the date palm in the UAE.

Visser added that the UAE has been engaged in continuous efforts to make the best use of available resources and increase agricultural productivity. More than 42 million date palms have been planted in the UAE in the last three decades.

According to Dr Abdul Ahbab Zaid, Director and Chief Technical Advisor of the Date Palm Research and Development Unit, more than 100 types of dates are being produced in the emirates today. The UAE is also the convenor of the international network of 26 date palms growing countries.

The unit is the world's first ISO 9001 and 2000 quality certified date palm research venture that has its own green houses, nurseries, tissue culture growth chambers, and other modern equipment. The Italy-based International Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) has also affiliated it in 2007.

One of the biggest achievements of the unit is the propagation of a rare male date palm tree in 2003, after the three-year strenuous research efforts. It was, at that time, given the name 'Al Ain City Date Male' by President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who was then Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces.

The male date palm belongs to a special breed of trees known for producing excellent date variety called 'Deglet Noor'. This plant was imported from Tunisia and planted at the orchard annexed to Al Ain Palace of Shaikh Khalifa.

The tree was among 2,000 plants that were brought from Tunisia in 1978. After their cultivation, it was found that the lot had just one male tree and all the rest were female.

The research unit, said Visser, has currently been dealing with some 50 varieties of dates as they are the most popular among the farmers and important for large-scale cultivations.

"We have been producing 20,000 plants per months at the facility," he said, adding that the unit has a much larger production capacity.

The plants are produced and grown to a stable stage at the unit's nurseries before being sold to farmers coming from across the country. "Some buyers also come from Oman and as far as India," said the official.

"The varieties offered to the farmers are completely pest and disease-free," said Visser. They grow faster than the normal offshoots with a strong root system and have a survival rate of close to 100 per cent. The plants produced at the laboratory starts yielding fruit in four years. Normal trees yield fruit in five to seven years, he said.

The first successfully produced date palm varieties at the laboratory include Khlass, Barhee, Hilali, Sukkari, Khenezi, Maktoumi, Khissab, Jabri and Abu Maan.

The programme has a marketing unit at its facilities in Al Foah district of Al Ain, encouraging national farmers to visit and inspect the varieties before buying them for their farms.

"The facility also provides technical know-how and support service to the farmers for successful cultivation of the tissue-cultured varieties," he added.

Research

The Date Palm Development Research Unit of the UAE University will set up a genetic fingerprinting facility for advance identification of date palm varieties.

Hendrik Johannes Visser, a research assistant at the facility, said identification of date palm varieties is the most difficult task. Even most farmers involved in cultivation of date palms cannot ascertain the trees before a certain stage. All the varieties, he said, have almost the similar physical features. The fingerprinting facility will use advance techniques and scientific methods to create a data-base of the tree varieties. This is the most reliable way to identify the trees, he said.

"We are currently in the preliminary stage of the project and are acquiring the necessary equipment," said Visser, noting that the facility will be ready by the end of this year.

Ancient origins