State of Research on the Date Palm Culture Operations and Their Effect on the Improvement of Date Production

摘要

Farming operations have a direct effect on the date palm production and fruit quality. Research programs conducted in Tunisia and elsewhere helped to solve many problems and adopting new technologies to improve date palm cultivation and protection. Other techniques were also developed for molecular characterization and varietal distinction. The results were obtained in propagation, pollination, fruit thinning, pruning, harvesting and conservation of the pollen and improvement of the date sector in general. Efforts have been made in chemical and biological control of major pests and diseases of date palm, and some successes were realized. This paper reviews the situation of the research work in date palm cultivation and presents major results obtained during the last years.