The Periscope 2006 - In the Beginning...The Story of Dates Part 1

Interestingly, the Coachella Valley is the place best suited to date culture in the entire United States. Small acreages were successful in the Phoenix and Yuma areas, but this Salton Basin had the climate, soil and water that the date palm needs to produce well. It seemed appropriate to the Coachella Valley Historical Society Board of Directors to give recognition to the importance of this plant in the history of the world, and to the daring men who traveled to the desert areas of the Old World to secure the best varieties for commercial plantings here. Accordingly, the Board has embarked on a project to establish a Date Museum in Indio. They also decided that this was an appropriate subject for the 2006 Periscope.

When early settlers bean supposing that dates might be a good crop for this newly developing desert area, they tried planting date seeds, but the fruit was not uniform or readily marketable. Consequently, they soon realized that they needed to import offshoots (the suckers which grow out around the base of a date palm) to get good fruit. This issue of the Periscope will begin a two-part story of the securing of date palm offshoots to begin a viable commercial industry. It begins with a brief history of the importance of the date palm in the Old World, then includes an early history of the date industry in the United States by Roy Nixon, for many years the date expert at the United States Department of Agriculture Date and Citrus Station in Indio, and concludes with a start on "the rest of the story." This Periscope could only include the personalities who actually went overseas to get the plants, or who worked in the very beginning. Part II will tell the story of the USDA Station and the local growers who were part of this new industry.

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