Erode farmers make a date with exotic palms

ERODE: Who said dates are cultivated only in the Gulf countries? Plucking a juicy date fruit off a tree in your backyard and sinking your teeth into sweetness is no dream anymore. A software professional-turned farmer of Pongalur village in Tirupur has been inspiring farmers in Erode with his success in growing ‘Barhi’, a variety of date palm that’s gaining acceptability in the region.Impressed with K Manivannan’s achievement, a student-team from Tamil Nadu Agriculture University (TNAU) has been persuading farmers in Erode district to take up the challenge on their dry patches.
“Erode district depends on river and canal irrigation, but most of the areas are now dry. Date palms will grow well in such areas,” said Kavi Sidharthan, a fourth year student at TNAU. Farmers need far less water to grow date palms that start flowering after two years and can help them make a decent living. Few farmers in Rajasthan and Gujarat grow date palms and much of the dates consumed in the country are imported.
The date palm is dioecious (with male and female reproductive organs) and have separate male and female plants. While they grow well from seed, just half of the seedlings could be female. The 150 Barhi saplings that Manivannan planted on his one-and-a-half-acre farm two years ago have grown into trees and have now begun to flower. “There are more than 200 varieties of dates. But, I preferred the Barhi variety because the berries can be eaten directly and there is no need to process them,” Manivannan told TOI.
He obtained imported saplings from a private firm in Vanjipalayam in Tirupur district. “They were tissue-culture-derived saplings that were two-and-a-half-years old,” he said, pointing out that they thrived well on red soil. A few farmers in Coimbatore too are experimenting with date palms in their farms, and quite successfully so.
“The wood and leaves provide timber and fabric for houses and fences. The leaves are used for making ropes, cord, baskets, crates and furniture,” said Sidharthan, who leads a team of six student members. The bases of the leaves and the fruit stalks are used as fuel, and the fruit yields food products such as date vinegar, date chutney or sweet pickle, date paste for bakery products and additional flavoring for oranges, bananas and almonds. The tree's terminal buds make tasty additions to vegetable salads, said Sidharthan, who, along with his team, has been trying to motivate Erode farmers to go in for the less water intensive date palm farming, which could prove lucrative as well.