The date palm tree has and still playing a vital, indispensable role as key source of food and sustenance throughout the history of the UAE.
The tree forms an important part of the daily life of Emirati people, as they use its fruits for food, its trunk for building homes and its fronds, leaves and fibers for traditional handicrafts.
The UAE attaches great importance to agricultural development in general, and to date palm in particular. This special attention is clearly evident in the continued expansion in agricultural resources and investments, in the fast growth in the number of palm trees, in the continued increase in the size and variety of date projects, in the extensive use of modern technologies, and in the important initiatives undertaken in the areas of manufacturing and marketing of date fruits.
As a date growing country, the UAE boasts of having a high population of dates, large date farms and high-quality species and products. It set up advanced date facilities for cultivation and development of the tree including date processing plants, date palm research and development centres and date palm tissue culture laboratories and pest control services.
The Date Palm Tissue Culture Laboratory, DPTCL, in the United Arab Emirates University is internationally recognised as one of the major commercial date palm mass propagation units. The aim is to realise agricultural development in general and date palm in particular, given the tree's high nutritional value and its significant component in the nation's rich cultural legacy.
Founded in 1989 by the late founding father, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the DPTCL uses the application of tissue culture techniques for date palm, also called in vitro propagation.
In 1993, a large state-of-the-art centre and laboratory for tissue culture techniques was established to propagate hundreds of thousands of healthy selected date palm seedlings and offshoots. The DPTCL has the capacity to propagate 40,000 to 50,000 seedlings each year, and that is showcased and marketed in local and international exhibitions.
Major export markets for these UAE high-quality seedlings and varieties include Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Thailand, India, Saudi Arabia and Oman. Dr. Allen Lou Mansour, Assistant Director of Development, DPTCL, said the DPTCL uses Organogenesis - a protocol for date palm multiplication - to produce high-quality tissue date offshoots.
The organogenesis process is one of the most advanced scientific techniques to produce true-to-type to the mother and diseases and pests-free date palm varieties and offshoots, he added. He said that the DPTCL is working with the Khalifa Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology to conduct a series of researches to produce new red palm weevil-resistant tissue offshoots and high salinity and drought-tolerance date offshoots.
The DPTCL seeks to become a leading international centre for propagation and development of dates and to establish a model mother date palm farm to be the key genetic reference for most date species in the Arabian Gulf and the world. A plan of action for this project will be put in place through partnerships with a number of research centres and academic institutions.