Saudi Arabia's date export volumes continue to increase compared to last season. According to Dr. Elmaati Yassine, quality control manager at Yousef Bin Abdul Latif and Sons Agriculture Co., this increase is due to the normal recovery post-Covid19.
The grower took advantage of the pandemic period to conduct research that would allow it to improve its productivity and cut its production costs. Thus, the company used the services of Dr. Abdelazize Jiati of the Tokyo University of Agriculture, to investigate "the effects of flower position in spikelets in the Sukkary variety of date palm on fruit-set and final fruit weight" and determined "the best time to apply strand-cut (bunch cut) as an alternative to hand thinning".
Dr. Elmaati explains: "We conducted this research on our plants to reduce our labor costs for applying hand thinning to the female plant, which is charged approximately $8 per tree". Beyond the cost savings, the application of this technique would also allow the grower to increase the final fruit weight. The results of the research are available here.
Dr. Elmaati adds: "We put our heart and soul into producing the highest quality of organic dates. We're currently providing the local market, as well as European and American countries. We're planning to expand on the Japanese, Indian and Indonesian markets in the near future."
"We produce the varieties Mejhoul, Sukkary, Saqai, Khalas, Safawi, Ajwa, Khudri, Barni and Barhi on our organic farm. We market our produce through our very own brand 'Yala Dates', in various packagings for retail and wholesale", concludes Dr. Elmaati.
For more information:
Dr. Elmaati Yassine
Yousef Bin Abdul Latif and Sons Agriculture Co.
Tel: +966 541 882 741 / +966 508 662 068
Email: [email protected] / [email protected]
www.yaladates.com