Journey of Date palms.

It’s very common to find date palms in landscape areas like gardens, road islands, or community areas in UAE especially in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Ajman and Al Ain; almost in UAE date palms are integral part of landscape designs. And why not? They look beautiful, they are available in many sizes, they provided shade, fruits and they survived the extreme weather conditions rather they are made for this kind of weather and UAE national loves them. It is the same feeling they must be having like most of the Indians feel for Mango trees.

While driving around in UAE have you ever wondered how these trees planted in those landscape areas. It’s quite interesting to know how these palms travels from farms in remote areas of UAE to city areas. Being associated with landscaping industry of UAE for more than a decade I have planted enormous numbers of date palms in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Ajman and Al Ain. I have been roaming around entire UAE to source right kind of Date palm trees as per projects requirements. Its time consuming but interesting process. Selling palms to landscaping companies is a business for many people especially Pakistani, Belouchi, and Bangladeshi people are involved in this business. Kind of efforts they put to arrange these palms and risk they are taking if you compare to that they earn very little money.

Let’s see first how this supply process being done. If you need few date palms just go around in Warsan areas and various Nurseries can supply you easily at very competitive rates depending on season. If you are buying Date palms in summer or fruiting season its very difficult and very expensive as most of the farm owners are not willing to sell in this period of the year. Wherein after October when fruiting season almost ends most of them starts selling and prices starts coming down till March. Again from March it starts the fruiting season which things may get tougher. So if you are looking for Date palms somewhere above 100 and above for your project its better to plan your procurement and consider the season as per your project requirement. Most of the projects are in full swing during summer season only. So if you need to plant Date palms during fruiting season then better you pay advance and book your trees with farm owners or suppliers.

Generally, if you have high demand like 300 or 400 numbers then rather don’t depend on single supplier and always keep your options open. There are many people in market who will be selling date palms but if you know them you will realize there are specific people who are the real key players or suppliers. People like Ismail Belouch, Abdulmalik, Rehmat, Abdul Sattar and Abbas are the some of the key people who do all the hardwork of arranging palms. When you place the order with them they go around in Lewa, Ras Al Khaimah, Al Ain, and some parts of Dibba Fujairah searching for date palms farm owners who wants to sale their less fruiting palms. Areas like these are having a large number of date palms farms which are planted, grown and maintained for date fruits. Every year these farm owners will get rid of those trees which are less productive and infected with diseases and insects. You need to be careful with what you are selecting. Now these farm owners have caretakers who are deciding about how many they will allow to remove from their farms. These people will share this information with local agents who are regularly in touch with them for availability. This is very time taking part as farms are in remote areas and you really need to go driving around door to door to get this information.

Thanks to local agents who does these hard work. Now City suppliers are contacting these local agents and then visiting farms to see and mark the trees that they want to sell. Problem with this exercise is you may get different sizes of palms from one farm. City suppliers are hence always come up with multiple projects requirements so they can sell as many as possible. Once they have decided the prices for these palms and commission for local agents they will arranged labors or experts who can clean palm tree’s trunks; this process called as Khalafa. Again its art work and hard work. Climbing trunk of Palms and with cutting knife cutting and cleaning each single frond in specific angle is something worth watching. Once the cleaning is being done they will measure the trunk height and girth and based on sizes they will make there arrangements for supplying to various projects in UAE. These palms generally taken out after tying their fronds straight up with hessian cloth and shaving its root ball up to certain size to reduce weight of the root ball and loaded with Hiab crane and shifted to nearest location where they are separated as per city suppliers requirements and loaded in other 9 to 12 ton Hiab vehicle to transported to city.

Generally in city areas or project sites, Consultant’s Inspectors or Landscape Specialists will inspect these palms for height, girth, root ball size, health of tree like no signs of insects or disease and color of leaves. If all are acceptable to them then they will be planted in pre-arranged locations or pits. With support if needed as mostly date palms stand on its own. After 45 days or once the center shoot start popping out of hessian cloth from tied fronds it’s time to open the fronds. Don’t cut dried fronds right away let them be there for some more time.

Just remember if you required large number of date palms please make your arrangements in advance as sometimes it’s really hard to get trees in local market due to high demand from inside and outside of UAE. Also if you see some unnecessary sand or soil on the trunk of palms while receiving on site do double check those palms as soil on trunk is generally is a trick of suppliers to hide those defects or infected areas on trunk, spraying some insecticides after planting will be great.

Some facts and details for general botanical knowledge

The date palm, its botany

• Tall evergreen, un-branched palm; can grow to 30 mtr.
• The trunk is surrounded from the ground upward in spiral pattern with the base of earlier formed leaves (leaf scars).
• Leaves are large (4-5 mtr) alternate, sheathing, in dense terminal rosettes, pinnately lobed. The end of the leaf fronds are needle sharp.
• Dioecious: female and male individuals. Flowers are borne in bunches at the top of the tree. Only the female trees produce fruit, but one male tree can produce enough pollen to pollinate 40-50 female trees.

• The fruit of the date is a drupe and has one seed, which can vary in size, shape, color and quality of flesh. Unripe dates are green in color, maturing to yellow, then reddish-brown when fully ripe. A single large bunch may contain more than a thousand dates, and can weigh between 6 to 8 kg. 
• Each tree produces between five and ten bunches. A mature female tree can produce upwards of 150 pounds of fruit annually.
• Date palms begin to bear fruit at 3 to 5 years, and are fully mature at 12 years.
• Can be propagated by seed (but the chances are 50/50 of getting a male tree); generally, however (i.e. in commercial planting), propagated by suckers (offshoots) taken from the base of the mature female (other Phoenix species). These will always be a genetic copy of the parent tree.

The date palm, its distribution and ecology

• Requires high temperatures and low air humidity for fruit setting and ripening (35 C is optimum temperature for pollen germination); also requires water supply (irrigation, high water table) "growing with its head in fire and its feet in water".
• Grown in a nearly rainless belt between 15 and 35 N Lat in Sahara and southern fringe of the Near East (Arabia Peninsula, southern Iraq, UAE, Jordan, etc.)
• Wild dates are morphologically and ecologically similar to domesticated dates but have smaller, inedible fruits. There are many escapes from cultivation and hybrids between wild and domesticated dates, making a distinction between wild and domesticated populations quite difficult.