A tree crop, Phoenix dactylifera, among the oldest cultivated tree crops in the world, domesticated in the region of Mesopotamia or the Persian Gulf more than five thousand years ago. Date palms have long formed the agricultural and economic center of oasis farming across North Africa and the Middle East, providing food, building material, fiber and fuel in environments too arid for most other crops, and their cultivation supports a distinctive layered oasis agriculture in which the palms shade smaller fruit trees and vegetable crops grown beneath them. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Algeria are among the largest modern producers of dates, the palm's staple fruit crop.
Facts
Disputed
Domestication RegionEastern Arabia (Persian Gulf region) and Mehrgarh, western Pakistan 1 Wikipedia's Distribution section also reports alternate hypotheses placing origin in the Fertile Crescent (Egypt and Mesopotamia) or derived from wild palms in western India; the exact center of domestication is unresolved. Domesticated When (Circa)circa 7000 BCE (Mehrgarh) to 5530-5320 BCE (eastern Arabia) 1 Earliest cultivation dates vary by site in the source; Mehrgarh evidence is older than the eastern Arabian evidence, and the article also notes competing claims for a Fertile Crescent origin, so a single domestication date is unresolved. Scientific Name Connections
Associated With
The red palm weevil is the most destructive insect pest of date palm plantations across the Middle East and North Africa.
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Date palm, Wikipedia
Lead section
Phoenix dactylifera, commonly known as the date palm, is a flowering-plant species in the palm family Arecaceae, native to the region from the Gulf States and Iraq to Pakistan and India.
Description section
It is cultivated for its edible sweet fruit called dates.
Cultivation section, Agricultural history subsection (Mehrgarh/eastern Arabia clause)
there is archaeological evidence of date cultivation in Mehrgarh, a Neolithic civilisation in western Pakistan, around 7000 BCE and in eastern Arabia between 5530 and 5320 calBC
Cultivation section, Agricultural history subsection (date clause)
there is archaeological evidence of date cultivation in Mehrgarh, a Neolithic civilisation in western Pakistan, around 7000 BCE and in eastern Arabia between 5530 and 5320 calBC
lead description or Wikipedia lead (primary-uses)
It is cultivated for its edible sweet fruit called dates.
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