On 7 Nov. 2009, His Majesty declared that one million date palms will be planted in three regions, Interior, Dhahirah, and Sharqaiah. The palms will be government owned and will be compromised mainly of 'Fardh" cultivar. Here is the story from the Oman Observer & Times of Oman:
HM lauds strides taken in agriculture sector
ONA
Sunday, November 08, 2009 12:15:59 AM Oman Time
IBRI — His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said yesterday lauded the achievements made in the agriculture sector at a speech made during the annual meet-the-people tour in Saih Al Masarat in Ibri.
His Majesty the Sultan began his address by thanking Allah the Almighty for allowing His Majesty the Sultan to meet with his subjects on this blessed land and appealed to Allah to grant all prosperity and well-being. “Today, I want to comment on the outcome of the symposium that was held at this area, which was organised to assess and look into the recommendations of the previous symposium in Sumail on the sustainable agriculture issues. We thank Allah the Almighty that since the first symposium was held in 2007, satisfactory achievements have been made in this field. The last symposium highlighted a number of issues and proposed solutions for what were believed to be hindrances that should be addressed,” HM said.
“The outcome of the symposium was approved by us together with the recommendations. As you know, the issue that is more important now, is to activate these recommendations. Activation is more important than the recommendations themselves. We will personally follow up the implementation of the recommendations of the symposium that was organised here few days ago with the respective departments,” His Majesty said.
“No doubt, you have heard about our directives to plant one million date palm trees. Many may ask how this million date palm trees will be planted and what is the aim behind this,” His Majesty asked.
His Majesty explained: “After scrutinising food in the country, we found that the date palm trees, since ages, has been the backbone of the food security in the Sultanate alongside the cattle and other plants that have been planted, such as, cereals and others.”
“Fish is also the wealth of the nation. It is a great wealth upon which a lot of Omani people have made their living,” he added.
His Majesty further said, “the date palm farms and plants are privately owned and this is a good thing. These farms include 8 million date palm trees distributed to the different parts of the Sultanate.
Therefore, we have decided to plant more date palm trees and found that the million number is good for us because we should think of issues such as water, spaces and land.”
His Majesty stated, “a date palm tree requires 14,000 gallons of water per year. This issue is exaggerated.
From the scientific point of view, it is found that it may require about 10,000 gallons of water. This is a huge quantity of water for which the date palm tree will need.
Therefore, the decision of planting one million date palm trees was made. The trees will be an endowment for the treasury and will not be distributed. They will be the ownership of the government endowed for the treasury. The date palm trees will be distributed in the three regions — Al Dahirah, Al Dakhiliyah and Al Sharqiyah region. His Majesty the Sultan also met sheikhs and dignitaries of the wilayats of Al Dahirah and the Al Buraimi governorates at the Royal Camp in Saih Al Masarat in the wilayat of Ibri.
The question of water requirement:
ReplyDeleteWe indeed need to reduce irrigation water due to water shortage.
I visited the FAO website on date palm irrigation (http://www.fao.org/docrep/006/Y4360E/y4360e0b.htm) and the first table (table 48) suggests that an average of 37,800 m3 is required per hectare per tree. If we grow date palm trees at a spacing of 10x10m, then a hectare will have 100 date palms, each will consume 378 m3 per year or approximately 100,000 gallons per tree per year. I am not sure if my calculations are correct but 10,000 gallon per palm per year is one tenth of that amount.
In the case of Tunisia (table 49), 23,647 m3/ha/year or 6,246,876 g/ha/year or 62,468 g/palm/year
Given the high ET in Oman, we certainly need accurate estimate of water requirements of date palm.
(1 m3 = 264.17 gallons = 1000 L)
Saudi estimates are within the range of 15,000 m3 and 55,000 m3.
ReplyDeletehttp://digital.library.ksu.edu.sa/paper1243.html