Date Palm Genetic Resources for Breeding

The date palm tree offers a wide range of benefits. It contributes significantly to environmental balance—it thrives in severe climatic conditions. It is a known source of several useful medical and nutritional chemical compounds. In recent times, environmental and non-environmental factors like unregulated commercial exploitations, extensive genetic and soil erosion, and pests and disease infestations threaten the existence of the date palm cultivars. Traditional breeding of date palm takes a long time due to its extended life cycle and difficulty in identifying the sex as the sex becomes prominent a few years after planting. However, with the advancement of tissue culture and other biotechnology and molecular breeding, date palm researches have been accelerated. Both in vitro and in situ conversation options have been explored as a way to conserve the existing cultivars. Traditional propagation via offshoots is simply not enough to meet the present-day date palm tree demands. Conversely, micropropagation has shown promising signs as a better large-scale propagation method for cultivating date palm trees. In vitro regeneration involving different methods has been explored. This came with noticeable shortcomings like browning, latent contamination, extended in vitro cycle, ex vitro acclimatization and transplanting, and somaclonal variation. Further research into these issues has resulted in improved micropropagation systems of various date palm cultivars. The genetic conformity is retained in regenerated plantlets via molecular characterization—an essential requirement for commercial production. More work is required to perfect the micropropagation of exclusive date palm varieties. This will facilitate the commercial production of date palm utilizing tissue culture laboratories worldwide.