By Sarmad Qazi/Staff Reporter
In a major green initiative, the Ministry of Environment (MoE) will produce hundreds of thousands of native date palm trees using biotechnology, officials said yesterday.
Al-Marri (centre) and Twyford … ‘using biotechnology thousands and thousands of native date palm trees can eventually be produced
Briefing media director of MoE’s Centre for Biotechnology, Masoud Jarallah al-Marri, said the initiative will go a long way in preserving Qatar’s cultural heritage as well as strengthen food security of the country.
“The MoE is responsible for development of the agricultural sector and date palm trees hold special place in Qatari society and landscape,” al-Marri said.
The method used, with consultancy services from UK-based Cedric Twyford, will be tissue culture.
“We will be taking varieties of selected date palm trees and setting up a whole system where you have a production output of 100,000 a year eventually,” Twyford, a plant tissue-culture specialist, told Gulf Times.
The tissue-culture method is of paramount importance in plant propagation, especially for the varieties that are otherwise difficult to produce on a mass scale.
“It allows achievement of a large number of true-to-type plant with good quality and free from pathogens,” officials said.
The aim of the MoE, al-Marri said, is to produce large quantities in record time without affecting the quality of the product propagator, obtain the desired product and the corresponding original tree, and to have a produce that is pest free.
“We are seeking to harness modern technology in producing at least nine local date palm varieties,” al-Marri said.
These are Khalas, Khaneezi, Sheeshi, Berhi, Lulu, Nabat Saif, Dajlah Nour, Razeez and Hilali, he said.
“Our aim is to raise the level of production for Qatar and citizen’s needs, provide desired varieties of palm trees, reduce imports, contribute to the food security and build research capacity,” al-Marri explained.
According to Twyford, normal method of reproduction is not feasible as offshoots do not take in enough nutrition to meet the demand of re-plantation.
“You couldn’t reproduce the date palms in Qatar that fast if they were subject to diseases and in case you lost them,” Twyford said.
In the tissue-culture process, a young offshoot is separated from the mother plant acropetally and subsequently dissected in the lab to attain the targeted meristematic tissue.
This meristem is cultured in test tubes containing medium supplemented with hormones to initiate callus tissues. After three to six months, the embryogenic callus is then cultured in hormone-free medium for multiplication. After another waiting period of three to six months, following which, the embryos, now somatic, start to grow to plantlets with leaves and roots in two-three months.
They are waited on for root elongation before final acclimatisation in green houses begins. After achieving the desired growth they can be planted at various locations, officials said.