The Date Trees!

How Much Do You Know The Date Trees?

The date trees are a common sight in most of the Middle East countries and Northern regions of Africa. They have been in these regions for more than 7000 years. However, the demand for the date fruit comes from all over the globe. Apart from the natural sugar that one gets from the fruit, there are interesting facts about the tree that not many know about. Let’s see how many of you know:

1000 or More Types:

Did you know that there is not just one or two but more than 1000 types of trees? UAE alone has about 199 types of date trees, which produce around 900.000 tons of dates per year. Oman produces around 268.000 tons of dates.

Giants of Date Trees:

The world producers of the date fruits are UAE and Oman. These two countries have a majority of date trees. If you happen to travel to either of these countries, you will find date trees almost everywhere. So much so that you will get these fruits for your breakfast, lunch or even as a snack.

Islamic Tradition:

The Islamic culture treats a date tree as the tree of life in the Garden of Eden. When a boy is born in Oman, there is a tradition to plant the date and grow trees. The belief behind this tradition is that both the boy and the tree grow together. This way it offers a security that his family will not starve.

Multipurpose Tree:

The idea behind planting the date trees was not just the date fruits but to get shades in the hot and arid dessert. Each part of the tree is put to use. For instance, the leaves are used to make baskets, carpets, and even trays. The trunk goes for the frame of tents or used for making furniture. Its fiber was used for making brushes, fish traps, ropes, and filling the mattresses and pillows.

No Environmental Pressure:

The date trees cover just 3% of the entire Earth’s cultivated surface. This means of all the rich produce that one gets, it is out from the limited reserves. Interestingly, statistics shows that around 4 million tons of dates are produced every year. Almost 2000 years old date pit was found by Israeli researchers recently. It is a very rare species which everyone thought to be extinct.

Tough Tree:

The date tree is salt-tolerant and is known to grow even in alkaline soils where usually the other plants die. Often times the date trees are irrigated with ocean water. These trees need at least 100 sunny days with 100 degrees to produce the best fruit. Of all the trees that are going extinct slowly, this is the only species that will survive the next century for sure.