A Master’s Thesis Submitted to the College of Agriculture Investigating the Effects of Pollination Treatment, Pollination Timing, and Chelated Zinc Spraying on the Growth and Fruit Yield of Micropropagated Barhi Date Palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.).

The College of Agriculture at the University of Diyala discussed a Master’s thesis entitled:

“The Effects of Pollenizer Cultivar, Pollination Time, and Chelated Zinc Spraying on the Growth and Fruit Yield of Tissue-Cultured Barhi Date Palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.).”

The study, conducted by postgraduate student Noor Majid Fandi, yielded several significant findings, including the following:

The pollenizer cultivar exerted a statistically significant influence on the growth and yield characteristics of Barhi date palm fruits. The pollen mixture comprising Khudrawi and Barban cultivars outperformed the other treatments in most of the investigated parameters.

Furthermore, foliar application of chelated zinc (Zn-EDTA) resulted in significant improvements in the qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the fruits. Among the concentrations examined, 100 mg L⁻¹ proved to be the most effective in enhancing the majority of the studied parameters.

The study recommends the following:

Adopting the pollen mixture comprising Khudrawi and Barban cultivars in manual pollination programmes for tissue-cultured Barhi date palms.

Performing pollination 24 hours after the splitting and opening of the female spathes to ensure the highest possible fruit-set percentage and optimal yield characteristics, while avoiding excessively early or delayed pollination, which may reduce fruit-set rates.

Conducting further investigations to evaluate the effects of other locally available male date palm cultivars and pollen mixtures, alongside assessing the economic feasibility of foliar application of micronutrients.

The study is aligned with Sustainable Development Goal 2 (Zero Hunger), particularly in its commitment to achieving food security, improving nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture. More specifically, it contributes to the target of ensuring sustainable food production systems and implementing resilient agricultural practices capable of increasing productivity and improving soil quality.

#College_of_Agriculture #Sustainability_Is_Our_Approach