Date Palm Research and Development Unit

Date Palm Tissue Culture Laboratory (DPTCL)

The DPTCL, founded in February 1989, belongs to the United Arab Emirates University and took several years to reach its technical establishment. The DPTCL is internationally recognized as one of the major commercial Date Palm Mass Propagation Unit.

The application of tissue culture techniques for date palm, also called in vitro propagation, has many advantages in comparison to the two traditional techniques (seed and offshoots propagation) and enables the following:

• Propagation of healthy selected female cultivars (disease and pest-free), Bayoud resistant cultivars, or males having superior pollen with useful metaxenia characteristics which can easily and rapidly be propagated;

• Large scale multiplication;

• No seasonal effect on plants because they can be multiplied under controlled conditions in the laboratory throughout the year;

• Production of genetically uniform plants;

• Clones to be propagated from elite cultivars already in existence, or from the F1 hybrids of previous selections, and seed-only originated palms;

• Ensure an easy and fast exchange of plant material between different regions of a country or between countries without any risk of the spread of diseases and pests; and

• Economically reliable when large production is required.