Kenneth Cox, age 12, of Glendale, Ariz., for his question:
HOW MANY YEARS WILL A DATE PALM PRODUCE FRUIT?
Dates are the fruit of a date palm tree. Under favorable conditions, many varieties of date palms will live to the age of 100 years or more, bearing fruit from the time they are between four to eight years old.
Dates grow best in a dry, hot climate and an alkaline soil. These trees bear a better crop if they are irrigated artificially or from a subsoil su.pply of water rather than by rain. In the United States, dates grow well in parts of Arizona, Texas and California.
Egypt and Iraq rank as the worlds leading producers of dates. Other important date growing regions include Saudi Arabia, Iran, Algeria, Pakistan and Morocco.
In parts of North Africa and the Middle East, date palms supply one of the chief articles of food.
As many as 200 dates, with a total weight of about 25 pounds, will grow in clusters on each date palm. Each tree will bear between 100 and 500 pound of dates each year.
The fruits grow in strands which are grouped into large clusters. Each date, when ripe, is oblong, golden brown and about two inches long. It may have either soft or dry sweet flesh and a hard pit in the center.
There are male trees and female trees. The growers plant one of the male trees with a number of the female trees. When the pollen is ripe, the growers cut sprays of the blossoms from the male tree and hang these blossoms so that the pollen will fall on and fertilize the flowers of the female trees, which develop the fruit.
Most people know dates best when they are dried. The fruit is then eaten raw. But to the Arabs, dates have always been a necessity and are used in a number of ways. They may be fried, baked or boiled in milk. Sometimes they may be used in jams or preserved or pickled in vinegar while green. The seeds are ground and used as feed for cattle. Medicine is also prepared from them.
The large leaves of the date palm can be used to weave mats, baskets and bags.
Rope is also made from the leaves of palm trees and the tree trunks and other parts can provide fuel and building materials for houses or fences.
Arizona has good date growing areas in the lower Salt River Valley and in the Colorado River Valley near Yuma. It has other date palm groves, scattered mostly in the Gila Valley and the upper Colorado River Valley.
In California, the date palm grows in the Salton Basin and some hot valleys in the interior.
Texas grows date palms in the lower Rio Grande Valley and certain areas between Laredo and San Antonio.
Dates need a hot, dry climate. They grow best in a temperature that stays around 90 degrees Fahrenheit for three months of the year. There must be no rainfall on the dates during the period of fruit ripening. Wet weather results in the blackening and splitting of the fruits and they do not ripen properly. Growers protect the dates by covering them with paper bags if there is a threat of rain.