Utilization of the Canary Island Palm Pollen for Date Palm Pollination

In order to the evaluation of the effects of Canary Island palm pollen on the fruit characteristics of commercial date palms cvs ‘Medjool’ and ‘Barhee’ and the possibility of use of the pollen of this specie for date palm pollination, the current study was conducted for two consecutive years in Date palm and Tropical fruits Research Center. The research was conducted as two separate experiments in a randomized complete block design with three treatments of pollen type (Canary Island palm including ‘G1’ and ‘G2’ and date palm cv ‘Red Ghanami’ as control) and three replications (18 trees that were 15 years old). Each palm has considered as an experiment unit. Results showed, traits of percentage of fruit set, parthenocarpy, and fruit drop in ‘Barhee’ cultivar were not affected by pollen source and no significant difference was obsereved between Canary Island palm pollinizers and ‘Red Ghanami’ pollinizer regarding these traits, but these traits were affected by pollen source in ‘Medjool’ cultivar. Canary Island palm pollinizers reduced seed weight, seed length and seed diameter of ‘Barhee’ cultivar significantly. While seed characteristics of ‘Medjool’ cultivar were not affected by Canary Island palm pollens. Qualitative characteristics of ‘Medjool’ and ‘Barhee’ fruits were also affected by Canary Island palm pollens. Overall, at the conditions of date palm pollen deficiency, the use of Canary Island palm pollens (3 g per spathe) for the pollination of ‘Barhee’ cultivar is recommended and for other cultivars more research is needed.