THE MASADA DATE SPROUT is still thriving:

Researchers hoping for a date with history

By Joel Greenberg

Chicago Tribune

(MCT)

JERUSALEM - In quarantine under protective netting, a palm sapling coaxed from a seed nearly 2,000 years old is growing in southern Israel.

Researchers nurturing the plant, nicknamed Methuselah after the biblical figure said to have lived 969 years, are worried about the seedling's exposure to modern pests.

"Things have changed in 2,000 years, and we have this plant that is frozen in time, like Rip Van Winkle," said Elaine Solowey, a horticulturist from the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies at Kibbutz Ketura in the southern Negev region.

"We have date trees across the road with modern diseases," Solowey said. "There's only one tree like this, and I feel very responsible for it."

The fledgling date palm was grown from a seed found by archeologists at the desert fortress of Masada, where Jewish rebels took their own lives in A.D. 73 rather than submit to Roman forces that captured the stronghold after a long siege. Carbon dating has shown the seed to be from around the 1st Century.

If the plant is female and continues to grow normally, researchers say, it could produce fruit in three to four years, replicating the ancient date of Judea, a valued export also known for its medicinal properties.

[...]