Seventy five years of research and development in date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.)

Globally date palm covers an area of 1235621 hectares with production of 9454113 tonnes and productivity 7.65 ton/ha. It has great socioeconomic importance and nutritional value in the Thar Desert, particularly in the Kutch region of Gujarat and western Rajasthan. Before 1947, India was a major date producer in the world. However, with independence and the partition that year, most of the date palm-growing areas became part of Pakistan. Subsequently, India became the world largest date importer. Over the last five decades, significant research has been done on date palm cultivation led by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) through the All India Coordinated Research Project (AICRP). Almost all the date cultivars grown in India were introduced from the Arabian Gulf and Middle Eastern countries. There is high potential for increasing the production area of date palm in India to fulfill local demand and to produce dates for export. Presently, the Rajasthan and Gujarat State governments and the private sector are convinced of the potential of date production and are striving to establish commercial date plantations and to promote date production. A public-private partnership has been established to boost production through tissue culture of date palms. Despite its important role in arid lands of the country and the efforts made, date palm cultivation, production, processing, and marketing are still beleaguered with several problems. The low quality of cultivars, non-availability of tissue-cultured plants, poor farm management, pests, diseases, lack of organized marketing, and insufficient applied research are major constraints of the date palm in India. This chapter discusses the current status, constraints, and approaches that can be used to develop the date palm industry in India.