THE MASADA DATE SPROUT IS REPORTEDLY STILL THRIVING:

2,000-Year-Old Judean Date Seed Growing Successfully
18:07 Jan 30, '06 / 1 Shevat 5766
By Ezra HaLevi

A 2,000 year old date seed planted last Tu B’Shvat has sprouted and is over a foot tall. Being grown at Kibbutz Ketura in the Negev, it is the oldest seed to ever produce a viable young sapling.

[...]

As this year’s Tu B’Shvat (The 15th of the Jewish month of Shvat, the Jewish new year for trees) approaches, the young tree that sprouted from one of the three seeds now has five leaves (one was removed for scientific testing) and is 14 inches tall. [the cultivator Elain] Solowey has named it Metushelah (Methusaleh), after the 969-year-old grandfather of Noah, the oldest human being recorded in the Torah.

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I say "reportedly" because something seems dodgy with this Arutz Sheva article. The most recent report before it, which I noted in November of 2005, said the sprout was nearly three feet tall (80 centimeters) and had already sprouted nine leaves. The information in yesterday's article thus seems out of date. But if there were any problems with the sprout, I imagine we would have heard of them, so I assume it's still okay.