Every year, about 250,000 tonnes of dates are produced in the UAE, and with 6,000 years of cultivation in the Middle East, the plant has very deep roots here.
More recently, date growing has been adopted in other parts of the world, including Australia, although more than a century on from the first trials there, production remains less than 100 hectares.
Thanks to the likes of Anita and Dave Reilly, who established Gurra Downs Date Company in South Australia in 1996, output Down Under could rise in the coming decades.
In an Emirates Journal of Food and Agriculture paper titled Developing a date industry in Australia, the couple have given fascinating detail about setting up and running their farm, the idea for which came from a desire to diversify a farm that already grew figs, grapes and pomegranates.
The date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) is salt tolerant, which is important in the UAE but also at the Reillys’ farm, where water supplies can be saline. The plant’s ability to tolerate extreme heat – temperatures at Gurra Downs can reach 48°C in January – is also key.
The couple created an underground laboratory to cultivate date palms in vitro and, in 2004, the first date palms were transplanted to fields.
Among the issues they had to contend with were black ants, which damage the fruit, but woven polythene bags have been deployed to keep them out. Hungry kangaroos are also a problem, although tying bunches of dates high up in the canopy keeps them out of reach. Various trials have been carried out on how to protect dates from the area’s heavy summer storms.
In 2010, the farm generated its first light commercial crop and, since then, its dates – including some eaten at the harder, early khalal stage of ripening, as well as others eaten at the softer rutab stage – have become popular.
“It is a delight to sell khalal fruits to Islamic and Indian communities around Australia who really enjoy fresh yellow dates, and amazing praise has been received for producing this fruit,” the couple wrote in their paper.
As production grows, the Reillys believe their farm could be a useful “counter-seasonal” date exporter, capitalising on the fact that most other date-producing countries are in the northern hemisphere.
The UAE has played a vital role in the project, since the Reillys learnt many of the techniques of pollinating, pruning, harvesting and processing dates and date palms at conferences and festivals in Abu Dhabi and Liwa. In recognition of their work, in Abu Dhabi five years ago they were presented with the Khalifa International Date Palm Award for the best new development project.
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