Date Fruit Bunches at the ASU Arboretum
Omega Phi Alpha (National Service Sorority) at the ASU Date Palm grove on the Polytechnic campus
D.P.D. Ltd is proud to be a supporter of the Arboretum at Arizona State University, helping to ensure that the rare varieties that it holds continue to be available to growers worldwide. ASU has the largest date palm collection of any public garden in the USA with more than 40 date palm varieties, including varieties descended from offshoots imported over 100 years ago, as well as specially bred domestic varieties, including varieties such as Black Sphinx, which are uniquely native to Arizona.
Arizona State University’s campus date palms produce around 3,500-4,500 pounds of dates each fall on two different campuses. They give away free samples of dates at campus events so that thousands of students, staff and the public can taste and appreciate the many different varieties of dates.
The programme runs throughout the calendar year. From February through to March, 80-100 volunteers, students and ASU horticulture classes learn how to pollinate the Date Palms. A further 75 volunteers bag the date bunches in June, July and August. Every September between 30 and 60 Changemaker Central Polytechnic volunteer students de-thorn, trim and clean up the palms for harvest. Harvesting time is in October and about 300 volunteers help with the entire process and fruit sales. Ishkashitaa Refugee Network volunteers travel up from Tucson and glean all the dates that they didn’t have time to bag, which totals around 1,500-2,000 pounds. Throughout the year they build up around 1,500 volunteer hours on both the Poly grove and Tempe campus.
For more information about the Arboretum please visit: https://cfo.asu.edu/fdm-arboretum-datepalm
