Dates with destiny

THE next farming revolution is in the palm of Dave Reilly's hand.

Dave Reilly

"THE taste is part coconut, part nashi pear," explains Dave Reilly, date grower and enthusiast in South Australia's Riverland, as he describes what it's like to eat fresh dates. "They're crisp and crunchy, best eaten soon after picking, like any fresh fruit."

To most Australians, it's a revelation that what we call fresh dates in fact are not. Dates are the fruit of a palm tree, Phoenix dactylifera, cultivated for thousands of years throughout the Middle East and North Africa, where they thrive in hot, dry summers and tolerate poor quality water. Although Australia's inland has plenty of potential for date growing, our industry is embryonic.

The large bunches of fruit are harvested in three stages of maturity as they ripen slowly over summer, developing sugars and changing colour and texture. Fresh dates, known as khalaal, can be yellow or red depending on the variety, with around 50 per cent moisture content.

"It's a short season and only a few varieties have the low astringency and early sweetness needed for khalaal fruit," Reilly says. "They're virtually unknown in Australia because quarantine laws restrict importation from all but a few pest-free countries. You might find them at one or two greengrocers once in a while, but they're likely to be of dubious quality, having been picked green to survive transit. Local supply is the answer. It could be the next revolution," Reilly says optimistically.

The next stage of ripening produces rutab or ripe dates, which have softened, turned brown, lost moisture and increased sugar content. When freshly harvested they are succulent, soft and delicious. Australians fond of the large Medjool dates, sold loose here from California, will recognise the description. Rutab dates store well when processed correctly, becoming a little drier and chewier as the moisture content decreases. The third stage is tamar or cured dates, dried to reduce the moisture content below 15 per cent, which concentrates the sugars. Because these keep so well without refrigeration, they have long been a staple food of desert peoples and an important commodity along the trade routes of the old world.

The largest producers of dates are Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan and Algeria. Australia imports somewhere between 5000 and 7000 tonnes of dates annually, of which just 10-15 per cent are high-value table dates (the majority are cooking and manufacturing quality). Each country grows different date varieties according to tradition or climatic suitability. While Australians tend to think of dates as a single product, there are thousands of different types in the world, because seedlings exhibit a high degree of genetic variability. Commercial date producers grow varieties such as Medjool, Barhee, Zahidi, Dayri and Khadrawy and hundreds of others.

At Gurra Downs Date Palms, about 250km northeast of Adelaide, Reilly and his wife Anita are keenly developing Australia's date industry. "Our farm's traditional crops of pumpkins and grapes became increasingly impacted by salty irrigation water, so I started searching for other salt-tolerant crops," Reilly says. "I kept coming back to dates and the strong marketing opportunities for them. We travelled overseas and discovered an amazing variety of really yummy dates that are unknown here in Australia."

Having spent the next decade bringing them in as tissue-cultured plantlets, some of the Reillys' trees are now bearing fruit.

"They were so tiny when we planted them we practically needed tweezers. It's a long lead time but they're there for a long time to come," he says.

With government support through the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation, Reilly now enthusiastically shares his knowledge, providing visiting farmers with information with the aim of building the industry to a state of commercial sustainability.

Gurra Downs has established a collection of 26 varieties that are being trialled around Australia and sells young trees to start-up ventures. "Only the best varieties will produce premium table dates," Reilly says. "There are two dozen growers now, in all states except Tasmania." He estimates there are still less than 50ha of date palms under cultivation in Australia but expansion is under way.

In the arid centre of Australia, Tim Micklem of Aridgold Farm, 70km south of Alice Springs, has been growing dates for over 30 years. He tells the story of Baron von Mueller, Victorian government botanist from 1853, giving date seeds to early explorers to plant around waterholes for future travellers. From these, and possibly further seed spreading by Afghan cameleers, grew a scattering of date palm sites across the inland, which were an early source of plantation material. Augmented with imported varieties, Micklem has built up nearly 20 varieties on his 100ha farm. Transportation is his major barrier to supplying fresh dates to the big city markets. "Air freight became too expensive and road transporters freeze them, which ruins them," he says.

The market potential that excites the Reillys is not just in supplying the Australian market but exports. Because 90 per cent of dates are grown in the northern hemisphere, Australia could supply eager Middle Eastern buyers in their off-season. Closer to home, Indonesia and Malaysia are promising markets because their climate is unsuitable for local production, yet consumption by the largely Muslim populations is high. Date consumption peaks during Ramadan, the month of religious fasting for Muslims, as traditionally the fast is broken with a few dates. Huge quantities of dates are widely given away for this purpose.

Reilly has recently returned from four months overseas on a Nuffield Australia Farming Scholarship, studying production, mechanisation and marketing methods. He's keener than ever about an Australian date industry. At the moment, Reilly sells all his fresh table dates direct from the farm to people who contact him via his website. Already demand exceeds supply, and production of commercial quantities is still a fair way off. But Reilly is working on changing all that.

"You'll see quite a bit of fruit coming out in the next few years," he promises.