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Abu Dhabi Farmers’ Services Centre (ADFSC) has won first place in the Khalifa International Date Palm Awards for the Best Development Project Category.
The ADFSC’s project, the Improved Date Palm Nutrition Programme, is a comprehensive care programme to improve date palm health treat palm trees in the Abu Dhabi Emirate with controlled-release fertilisers, soil additives and organic plant food.
Now in its second year, the programme is in the process of treating 87,500 trees on 175 farms in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, and these farms will act as a wide-scale demonstration, providing examples and sites across the emirate for training both farmers who are and are not participating in the programme. With this in mind, ADFSC is in the process of offering seminars at these demonstration farms across the emirate, providing training on the complete range of date palm care, from cleaning and trimming palms to fertilisation and spraying for pests.
"We’re very proud of the award," said Chris Hirst, CEO of ADFSC. "It helps to validate all the hard work that went into implementing the programme, which has already shown solid results." Indeed, last year’s programme, which was implemented in the Western Region, brought noticeable improved health to date palms within weeks, and by the time the dates were harvested in the summer the fruit was visibly larger and the yields were higher.
"What’s more," Hirst said, "out of 15 winners at last at last summer’s Liwa Date Palm Festival, 12 of them were participants in the first season of the programme." This year’s programme includes farms in Al Ain, Abu Dhabi and additional farms in the Western Region in addition to the 50 farms that participated in last year’s programme. In both Al Ain and the Western Region 37,500 palms will be treated, and 12,500 palms will be treated in Abu Dhabi.
The programme relies on globally renowned materials such as controlled-release fertilisers which ADFSC is working to develop exclusively for use with palm trees, but also includes other modern technological approaches to safe production, including mychorrhiza, humic acids, organic palm feeds and an extensive range of micro and trace elements.
Another important aspect of the programme is its focus on eliminating the red palm weevil from the treated palms.
"By using relatively straightforward cleaning and trimming methods," said Hirst, "it’s possible to eliminate an astonishing amount of red palm weevil larva from the palms. Practices such as removing side shoots and trimming old leaf bases so there is no gap gives the larva no place to attack the tree.
"Not only does this get rid of most of the larva," he continued, "but these practices cut down on the need for excessive pesticides use, resulting in a safer and healthier yield." The organization hopes that the positive results from last year’s programme and the continued improvement in yields and fruit quality will encourage the farmers to pay close attention to ADFSC-recommended techniques throughout the growing season, including proper irrigation methods.
Sheikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak Al Nahyan , Minster of Higher Education and Scientific Research, will present ADFSC with its award in a grand ceremony on 11 March at the Emirates Palace.
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