A simple, rapid, cost-effective and reliable molecular technique for early sex determination in Phoenix dactylifera

The Phoenix dactylifera is an important horticultural cash crop in arid and semi-arid regions, known for its sweet, edible, nutritious fruit. Date palm is a diecious plant; females are commercially important to produce fruits, and males are required for pollination. Dates are easily segregated through seeds, then seed-raised plants revealed 50 % of each male and female plant. But a farmer needs a 95:5 ratio of female to male in the farming land. However, the gender of the plant can be identified four to five years after planting when it begins to flower, and there is no other method available for the identification of the gender. Hence, the present investigation focused on the development of techniques for the early sex determination of dates. Seventy-nine ISSR primers were used to analyze DNA from bulked female and male date palms. Among 79 markers, one marker, ISSR-49, has been selected and successfully validated in 105 female and 103 male date palm samples. The novel reliable biomarker (TG)8RC alone generates both female (400 bp) and male (600 bp) specific, unique amplicons. In conclusion, this investigation developed a simple, efficient, cost-effective technique that can discriminate the gender of date palms in a single PCR reaction within 5 h.