IPB: Indonesia Will Capable to produce its Own Date Palms
Department of Agronomy and Horticulture of the Faculty of Agriculture (Faperta) of Bogor Agricultural University (IPB) in cooperation with PT. Tropical Date Palm Indonesia, and supported by the Directorate of Research and Innovation of IPB organized 1st Symposium on Tropical Date Palm. The event was implemented at IPB International Convention Center (IICC), Bogor, on Tuesday, 9 May 2017.
The objectives of the Symposium on Tropical Date Palm were to discuss various aspects of tropical date palm cultivation including the breeding of tropical date palm, tropical palm seeds, tissue culture regeneration, potential pests and control strategies, and experience sharing on the cultivation of tropical dates in Thailand.
Vice Rector for Research and Cooperation of IPB, Prof. Dr. Anas Miftah Fauzi, said that the symposium was very important event to be organized as an effort to answer the challenge that we Indonesian is capable of producing our own tropical dates, just like palm oil that thrives in Indonesia. "Indonesia has the potential to develop tropical palm plantations. The successful cultivation of tropical dates in Thailand and Malaysia, countries that have similar climate and ecology, are certainly important consideration. In addition, tropical dates also provide benefits in terms of socio-economic and ecological aspects for Indonesia, so the cultivation of tropical dates is very feasible to be developed, "he explained.
This national event was attended by Director of Directorate of Seedling Horticulture of the Ministry of Agriculture, Ir. Sukarman. "This tropical date is an idol for us because we know that date palms are grown and bear fruit in the Middle East. Therefore, when we know there are species of date palms that are able to be grown in tropical areas such as Indonesia, a lot of people will cultivate them, "he said.
In addition, he added that the date demands for our country is quite large and Indonesia currently imports all of its date demands for its market. "The import of tropical date seeds developed by tissue culture techniques becomes the most appropriate alternative for the planters in Indonesia. But the tropical date palm from the tissue culture system in Indonesia has not been produced locally, all imported from several countries, including Britain and Thailand, "he said.
Other resource persons, Dr. Alain Lemansyour, an expertise on tropical date palm of the United Arab Emirate (UAE) University present his presentation on "Breeding and Multiplying of Tropical Dates". According to him, most of the date propagation method in Indonesia is by seed propagation, also called sexual propagation, although useful for breeding purposes, is not a proper method of date palm vegetative propagation. Thus, seed propagation is by far the easiest and quickest method of propagation. However, it is not a true to type propagation technique and no two seedlings will be alike. When conditions are known to be unfavourable for date fruit production (case of marginal areas), the planting of date seeds, for future selection on fruit quality, is the most economical way of selecting clones that have some desirable characters such as rain and/or salt tolerance. Taking the above into consideration, and also because of the other many reasons, date growers are encouraged to use tissue culture-derived material of known varieties with high date quality and marketing potential, "he explained.
Other resource persons attended the international symposium were Prof. Dr. Sudarsono (Plant Molecular Biology – PMB Coordinator of Lab. IPB and lecturer of the Department of Agronomy and Horticulture of FAPERTA IPB); Prof. Dr. Meldy L. Hossang, scientist of BalitPalma; Ms. Prawput Puwkrasin, a successful practitioner of tropical dates from Thailand; Abren Ginting, ST, MBA, commissioner of PT. Tropika Date Palm Indonesia. Other guests present in this international event were Director of Research and Innovation IPB, Prof. Dr. Iskandar Z Siregar; Head of Sub Directorate of Research and Publication Research and Research Directorate of IPB, Dr. Nurul Khumaida.
The 1st Symposium on Tropical Date Palm was concluded by the establishment of Indonesian Tropical Dates Society and soft launching of "Tropical Dates Information Center (PI-KT). This international symposium was attended by approximately 150 participants, consisted of researchers, academicians and students, as well as agencies at the central, provincial, district / city level, farmer groups, and practitioners from all stakeholders on the cultivation of tropical dates in Indonesia. (Wied)
