Israeli scientists grow palm from 2,000-year-old seed at Masada

[Behind the Aegis]

Source: DPA

Israeli scientists have succeeded in getting a 2,000-year-old date
seed to sprout and grow into a palm of a native type that had been extinct for hundreds of years.

The seed - nicknamed Methusaleh after the oldest person in the Bible -was found in the ancient fortress of Masada, on a hilltop in the Judean desert by the Dead Sea where Jewish zealots committed mass suicide to avoid surrender to the Romans in the first century CE.

Project manager Sarah Sallon hopes the palm will prove to be a fruit-bearing female, but that she will know only in a few years time, when the now more than 1.20-metre-tall sprout grows into a palm tree.

If another of the seeds found at Masada can be cultivated and proves to be male, the two trees will be able to reproduce.

Israel, which now grows only imported date species originating from countries like Morocco, Egypt and Iraq, would be able to cultivate its own native kind: the Judean date palm, or Phoenix dactylifera in Latin, hundreds of years after it died out.


Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/992356.html

[notfullofit]

1. Damn but those Israelis sure are innovative. nt

[DUlover2909]

2. That's an awesome nomenclature. I wish it success!

[trusty elf]

3. Some things never go out of date.

:D



updated to replace one bad joke with another

[keroro gunsou]

19. oh gee... a fruit pun

and an excruciating bad one at that. good on those scientists.

[DavidDvorkin]

20. It was thyme for one.

[keroro gunsou]

21. sage advice....

well do you feel the need to pepper in all these salty puns, i mean it can't be just for flavor...

[Solly Mack]

4. Cool!

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. That's cool

(well, OK, they say the high summer temperatures may have helped keep the seeds viable, so maybe 'cool' isn't the right word to choose, but ...)

Great to see. Biodiversity strikes back!

[Kolesar]

7. Israel would be able to cultivate its own native kind: the Judean date palm

I cannot hear that word without thinking about The Life of Brian.

[dysfunctional press]

8. the preferred fruit of the judean people's front...

nt

[conspirator]

14. no, the people's front of judea nt

[Name removed]

6. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Thothmes]

9. A living thing that Silva missed

When a Roman legion destroyed something, generally it stayed destroyed.

[Trillo]

10. Meanwhile, in the U.S., the ornamental palms, or non-food bearing varieties,

continue to be the palms of choice used in most landscape designs.

[pleah]

11. Far out!

[sellitman]

12. Wow! A plant older than McCain!

:evilgrin:

[LibertyLover]

13. That is outstandingly cool

I hope that they are able to bring the Judean date palm back.

[not fooled]

15. Market it to the fundies!

"The Date that Jesus Ate!"

Sorry, couldn't resist. Hugh!!!111!!!

[DCKit]

16. Jeebus, you're such a prick...

but funny.

They could probably afford to buy the Egyptian slaves to rebuild the temple within five years with "Jesus Dates". Hell, maybe less. The Egyptian economy is even worse than ours and we'll see entire industries built around it within a decade.

On a more serious note, the pollen from the male plants (or others that are similar) often doesn't degrade - it's part of the dust, hard as hell and nearly immune to ecological forces. Go Sperms!

Seriously, the shit is nearly immortal. They'll find a pollinator with species specific pollen... they just have to wait, then plant every single seed.

Nobody's eating those dates.

Then again (caught before I had to do an edit), specific wasps pollinate the dates (and infest them, if you were wondering where the protein content was coming from).

If this particular date tree has been "out of circulation" for 2K years, chances are the wasps specific to this genus may also be extinct. Then again, some others may take up the challenge.

[not fooled]

17. Wind pollination

Date palms are wind-pollinated in nature, although in cultivation the pollination rate is enhanced by artificial means. It's figs that are pollinated by specific wasps.

Also, all edible dates are members of the same species, Phoenix dactylifera--just different varieties. Therefore, since 2000 yrs isn't much time in evolutionary terms, especially for a plant with the long generation time of the palm, pollen from modern varieties probably can fertilize ovules of the Masada tree (if it's female).

Finally, although pollen can indeed be durable enough that the hard outer shell persists for thousands of years, it's highly unlikely that the grains remain viable.

This plant reproductive biology lesson now concludes. ;)

[Judi Lynn]

18. Here's the story the L.A. Times did on this Judean date palm:

Date palm seed from Masada is the oldest to germinate
Photo by Guy Eisner / Courtesy of Science Magazine
This 4-foot-tall Judean date palm seedling grew from seeds estimated to be 2,000 years old.
The seed is found to be 2,000 years old. Planted three years ago, it has produced a healthy tree.
By Wendy Hansen, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 13, 2008



Photo by Guy Eisner / Courtesy of Science Magazine
This 4-foot-tall Judean date palm seedling grew from
seeds estimated to be 2,000 years old.


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-methuselah13-2008jun13,0,262353.story

Thanks to Behind the Aegis for posting this wonderful news. Looking forward to hearing more about this.