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Do Old Date Palms Go To Heaven

Medjool Date palms and other date palms can grow to about 150 years.  These date palms can produce fruit for about 150 years.  The problem in harvesting and tending to older medjool dates is that they are high.  They are very high.  Medjool dates require a lot of hands on labor that makes it difficult to tend to medjool date palms.  Other date palms do not require much hands on tending, but still require the fruit be harvested by hand.  So what do you do when it becomes not only expensive but dangerous to harvest those medjool dates from the medjool date palms ?  Well these medjool date palms go to market.  Not the piggy market.  The landscaping market.  Medjool Date Palms are sought out because of their beauty and because of the tolerance for drought.  They require much less maintenace than trees and can do well without much water.  Water is essential to produce the fruit, but in environments where it rains and where the weather is not hot the medjool date palm cannot be used successfully to grow fruit.  In these places the medjool date palm produces virtually no fruit and are well received as landscaping palms.  Most medjool date palms go out to market once they are about 20-30 feet.

Medjool Dates Need Water And Lots of It

Growing medjool dates is very labor intensive.  It requires an awful lot of labor and the medjool date palms require a lot of water.  The medjool date is grown in hot deserts.  The watering is done by flooding or by drip.  Most modern farms use a drip system to conserve water and reduce the operating expense.  The problem with drip is that if there is a clog you might know about it until the date palm is dead.  The cost is about $200-500 a date palm.  Why are medjool dates expensive ?  This is one reason.

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