Current state of ‘Majhoul’ date palm in the Tinejdad region, Tafilalet area, Morocco

Abstract

This research work was carried out on about twenty farms of different sizes where ‘Majhoul’ date palm is cultivated in the various oases extensions in the Tinejdad region, Tafilalet area. It focused on the cultivation practices of this variety, mainly fruit thinning which is crucial in the production of ‘Majhoul’ date palm and concerned about farmers because of its high cost as it requires skilled labor. And this in order to study the impact of this manual thinning on the production costs of ‘Majhoul’ date palm in the region and to make an alternative to this manual practice which is expensive, by using another method, mainly chemical thinning which is not expensive. Obtained results showed that 60% of the surveyed farmers practiced manual fruit thinning and that the cost of this operation seems to be expensive for the farmers. It costs 20 MAD per palm tree in large farms (containing more than 300 palm trees), 10 MAD per palm tree in the medium farms (100-300 palm trees) and 6 MAD per palm tree in the small farms (less than 100 palm trees). This cost represents 14 to 15% of the production costs of large and medium-sized farms of ‘Majhoul’ date palm in the region.