Abstract:
The date palm (Phoenix
dactylifera L.) is an economically
important species vital for food security in
Algeria, especially for the southern
population. There are an estimated 18
million palm trees in Algeria with more
than 1000 cultivars. This poorly known
resource is unfortunately threatened with
extinction. This work was carried out on
24 date palm cultivars, studying their
morphological and physicochemical
characteristics, such as the weight, length
and diameter of the date and the seed, and
the consistency, moisture, pH and sugar
content of the dates. Ten homogeneous
palm trees were selected for each cultivar.
From each tree, we collected 40 fruits
devoid of their calices (4-5 fruits per
bunch), at different heights and
orientations in each bunch. The results
show that the morphological and
physicochemical characteristics vary from
one cultivar to another. The dates of
most cultivars have a combination of
good and bad characteristics. The cultivar
Tmar-Bousbaa has very high values for
the characteristics weight, length, and
diameter of the date and seed (23.16 g,
4.90 cm, 2.85 cm, and 1.53 g, 2.74 cm,
0.94 cm, respectively). The cultivars
Takarnait and Halwa have high acidity,
varying between 1.08 and 1.92 g/kg of
fresh material and a pH of less than 5.46.
The cultivar Bouarous has a low sugar
content: less than 63%. Principal
component analysis (PCA) was used to
analyse the whole dataset, revealing high
variability among the cultivars. Thus, out
of 14 characteristics investigated, ten have
been shown to be strong discriminating
factors.
