Masada date palm update

METHUSELAH: Extinct Tree Resurrected from Ancient Seeds is now a Dad (April Holloway, Ancient Origins). Excerpt:

The first leaves were plagued with white spots, which the researchers put down to insufficient nutrients and it was thought that the plant would never survive. But as time progressed, the leaves began to look healthier. In 2011, the plant produced its first flowers and now he has become a father.

“He is over three meters [ten feet] tall, he’s got a few offshoots, he has flowers, and his pollen is good,” [botanical researcher Elaine ] Solowey told National Geographic. “We pollinated a female with his pollen, a wild [modern] female, and yeah, he can make dates.”

Solowey now hopes she will be able to plant an ancient date grove. To do that, she would need to grow a female plant from an ancient seed as a mate for Methuselah, and it’s looking promising – Solowey has managed to sprout a small handful of other date palms from ancient seeds recovered at archaeological sites around the Dead Sea, and at least two of them are female.

Solowey hopes to one day have a whole grove of Judean date palms like this grove of date palms of another species pictured in Spain

“We would know what kind of dates they ate in those days and what they were like,” Solowey said. “That would be very exciting.”

Background here and links.