MORPHOLOGICAL DIVERSITY OF DATE PALM (Phoenix dactylifera L.) IN EGYPT: 111- SOFT DATE PALM CULTIVARS

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 The Central Laboratory of Date Palm Research and Development,

2 National Gene Bank (NGB), Agric. Research Center, Giza, Egypt.

Abstract

To generate essential information of the identification, description and
documentation the agro-biodiversity of soft date palm cultivars in Egypt. taxonomical
relationships of twenty one soft date palm cultivars growing in Egypt were addressed
based on one hundred and three morphological attributes of trunk, crown, leaves,
fruits and seeds. The most important attributes are arranged according to their
taxonomic significance. This is followed by a key to the soft date palm cultivars in
Egypt. Fruit and seed attributes are still the most important criteria to distinguish
among date palm cultivars, but the blade, spine and crown attributes are useful in
delimitation some cultivars. Cultivars Zaghloul, Samani, Hayani, Bent Eisha are the
most common soft date palm in Egypt. In fact, Traditional soft date palm cultivars
affected and consequently threatened by horticultural systems and socioeconomic
factors of local community. It is necessary to emphasize that soft-date palm cultivars
in fact demand urgent management action to conserve its threatened and unique
biodiversity. Positive conservation action may be necessary at the infra-specific level if
diversity of date palm cultivars are to be maintained. The active cultivation is vital to
survival date palm diversity and a cultivars are soon lost for ever if it is not regularly
propagated. Because of the human cultural of local communities have a heritage
associated with date palm, The conservation and sustainable utilization of date palm
diversity must be considered as a societal enthusiastic.

Keywords