Effect of some male date palms on yield and fruit quality of Barhee cultivar

Abstract

This study was conducted during 2017 & 2018 seasons in order to study the effect of five pollinators of male date palm (grown in Al-Saf region – Giza Governorate) on the yield and fruit quality of Barhee cv. cultivated in Al-Behira Governorate. Five different date palm types were chosen to evaluate which male could be recommended to use as a pollinator for Barhee date palm cv. Four male types namely Fard, Dairy, Ghanamy, Sabad produced from tissue culture and the fifth male was Sewi satellite seedling which grown in farm (uses male as local pollinator) all males were grown in Egypt. Number of spathe/ palm; spathe weight, length & width; pollen tube growth; average of strand length as well as pollen grains germination % were determined for each male. Moreover, pollen grains from each male palm types were used as a pollinator to evaluate their effect on fruit set and fruit quality of cv. Barhee date palm. Data showed that both Sabad and Ghanamy male types were superior in their morphological characters as compared with other male type which showed the lowest values of morphological characters. On the other hand, there were great differences in pollen grains tube growth. Moreover, the results clearly indicated that Ghanamy and Dairy pollen grains recorded the highest fruit set percentage. While Fard produced the highest fruit weight (g) length, diameter, flesh weight, flesh % and bunch weight (kg). Data also revealed that dates that were picked from bunches pollinated with Dairy and Fard pollen had the highest total soluble solids (T.S.S.) value, total sugar, reducing and non-reducing sugar.