Posted on 03/29/2015 5:41:32 PM PDT by EBH
et out the cigars—Methuselah, a Judean date palm tree that was grown from a 2,000 year old seed, has become a papa plant.
Elaine Solowey, of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies at Kibbutz Ketura in Israel, recently broke the good news to National Geographic:
“He is over three meters [ten feet] tall, he's got a few offshoots, he has flowers, and his pollen is good," she says. "We pollinated a female with his pollen, a wild [modern] female, and yeah, he can make dates."
Methuselah sprouted back in 2005, when agriculture expert Solowey germinated his antique seed. It had been pulled from the remains of Masada, an ancient fortification perched on a rock plateau in southern Israel, and at the time, no one could be sure that the plant would thrive. But he has, and his recent reproductive feat helps prove just how well he’s doing.
For a while, the Judean date palm was the sole representative of his kind: Methuselah’s variety was reportedly wiped out around 500 A.D. But Solowey has continued to grow date palms from ancient seeds discovered in the region, and she tells National Geographic that she is “trying to figure out how to plant an ancient date grove.” Doing so would allow researchers to better understand exactly what earlier peoples of the region were eating and how it tasted.
At 2,000 years old, Methuselah’s seed isn’t the most aged to be used to grow a plant—not by a long shot. Back in 2012, a team of Russian scientists unearthed a cache of seeds from a prehistoric squirrel burrow that had been covered in ice. They eventually succeeded in germinating the 32,000-year-old specimens, which grew into an arctic plant closely resembling the modern narrow-leafed Campion.
I did not know this...
I think this would be more of an every day thing.....
Interesting.
So now we have the Tree of Life, growing and reproducing...
They have the alter of the Jewish Holy Temple rebuilt and ...waiting... for use. http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/32009/altar-jewish-holy-temple-rebuilt-jewish-world/#MPcX0EkKTEM67lLy.97
Please, don’t discover any ancient super-kudzu.
Seed of extinct date palm sprouts after 2,000 years
12JUN2005
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Seed-of-extinct-date-palm-sprouts-after-2-000-2628668.php
(excerpt)
The Judean date is chronicled in the Bible, Quran and ancient literature for its diverse powers — from an aphrodisiac to a contraceptive — and as a cure for a wide range of diseases including cancer, malaria and toothache.
For Christians, the palm is a symbol of peace associated with the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. The ancient Hebrews called the date palm the “tree of life” because of the protein in its fruit and the shade given by its long leafy branches. The Arabs said there were as many uses for the date palm as there were days in the year.
Greek architects modeled their Ionic columns on the tree’s tall, thin trunk and curling, bushy top. The Romans called it Phoenix dactylifera — “the date-bearing phoenix” — because it never died and appeared to be reborn in the desert where all other plant life perished.
When the Romans invaded ancient Judea, thick forests of date palms towering up to 80 feet high and 7 miles wide covered the Jordan River valley from the Sea of Galilee in the north to the shores of the Dead Sea in the south. The tree so defined the local economy that Emperor Vespasian celebrated the conquest by minting the “Judea Capta,” a special bronze coin that showed the Jewish state as a weeping woman beneath a date palm.
Today, nothing remains of those mighty forests. The date palms in modern Israel were imported, mainly from California. The ancient Judean date, renowned for its succulence and famed for its many medicinal properties, had been lost to history.
They usually hold up better in hurricanes than trees with big woody roots. Fibrous palm roots are kind of stretchy, and are not prone to rotting when soaked.
Their root ball is bigger than what the nurserymen take. They leave a lot in the ground. To transplant them [or any tree] it’s best to come and cut a circle around the tree the size of the container or basket then leave it in the ground a few months before pulling it out; it will grow shorter bushier roots. That helps prevent the shock it would go through if all its roots were cut back at once.
Of course they don’t shock as bad as other trees because a palm has live wood all the way through full of water, starch/sugars, etc... it gets them through rough times like a camel’s hump... whereas other trees have only a layer of live sapwood.
“We pollinated a female with his pollen, a wild [modern] female, and yeah, he can make dates.”
Us old guys can get it done!
Number 3...... The Larch......the Larch
The Methuselah tree in the White Mountains of Eastern California is twice that age at 4,846-years-old.
“Interesting. I just read recently that palm trees aren’t trees. They are actually a grass. They don’t have a root system like trees do, just a big root ball.”
“Of course if I am mistaken, a freeper will be here to correct me in a few seconds.
It took longer than a few seconds. The Judean date palm is a Phoenix dactylifera. The Genus is Phoenix, and the Species is dactylifera. The cultivar in this case is Methuselah, a male plant. Phoenix dactylifera is not a true grass, but the true grasses are related in certain important respects at the level of their common relationship among the Monocots.
A comparison of the true grasses to Methuselah might look something like this:
Kingdom: Plantae; Angiosperms; Monocots/Monocotyledon; Family: Poaceae (Gramineae)
Kingdom: Plantae; Angiosperms; Monocots/Monocotyledon; Family: Arecacea/Palmae (palm Family); Genus: Phoenix; Species: dactylifera; Cultivar: Methusaleh
True, true.
The word “date” has so many meanings.
32,000-Year-Old Plant Brought Back to Life—Oldest Yet
"The oldest plant ever to be regenerated has been grown from 32,000-year-old seeds—beating the previous recordholder by some 30,000 years. (Related: "'Methuselah' Tree Grew From 2,000-Year-Old Seed.")"
That’s a big fate true if I recall
Jamie fares twin sister
any heirloom tomatoes?
COOL; I just planted some date seeds in the yard about 2 weeks ago.
I’m a bit confused. The author refers to the palm as he, but says it has flowers. Even if it is not self fertile, wouldn’t it be possible to fertilize the flowers with pollen from another palm?
All flowering plants produce flowers, but the flowers can be male, female, or both. If the flowers have stamen, they produce pollen and are male. If the flowers contain pistils, they are female and able to make seeds once exposed to pollen. Some flowers have both pistils and stamen, and some of these can self-fertilize. Some plants produce separate male and female flowers; sometimes, these can also self-fertilize. Other plants only produce male or female flowers. It would seem that the palm is one of those plants.
Oddly enough, the genetic purge idea was developed with the idea of bringing back the mastodon. In that case, taking genetic matter from a frozen mastodon and implanting it in the egg of an elephant. If the offspring was viable, then over several generations, more of the mastodon DNA would be used to replace the elephant DNA, eventually resulting in a “pure” mastodon, identical to the ancient ones.
In any event, the Israelis have some very gifted plant biologists, like the one that was able to germinate this ancient seed, so with a full crop of fertile hybrid dates they will have a lot to work with.
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