Now that you mention it...the +rep is the little star beside" journal this post".
believe it or not, most of AZ is TOO COLD for date palms to produce good fruit....it need really hot....like the Lower Colorado River Basin, out around Indio CA...
here's a blurb I pulled...
In 1980, production in Saudi Arabia was brought to nearly a half-million tons from 11 million palms because of government subsidies, improved technology, and a royal decree that dates be included in meals in govern ment and civic institutions and that hygienically-packed dates be regularly available in the markets. Farmers receive financial rewards for each offshoot of a high-quality date planted at a prescribed spacing. The Ministry of Agriculture has established training courses throughout the country to teach modern agricultural methods, including mechanization of all possible operations in date culture, and recognition and special roles of the many local cultivars. In West Africa, near the Sahara, only dry, sugary types can be grown.
Bonavia introduced seeds of 26 kinds of dates from the Near East into northern India and Pakistan in 1869; and, in 1909, D. Milne, the Economic Botanist for the Punjab, introduced offshoots and established the date as a cultivated crop in Pakistan. The fruits ripen well in northwestern India and at the Fruit Research Center in Saharanpur. In southern India, the climate is unfavorable for date production. A few trees around Bohol in the Philippines are said to bear an abundance of fruits of good quality. The date palm has been introduced into Australia, and into northeastern Argentina and Brazil where it may prosper in dry zones. Some dates are supplying fruits for the market on the small island of Margarita off the coast from northern Venezuela. Seed-propagated dates are found in many tropical and sub-tropical regions where they are valued as ornamentals but where the climate is unsuitable for fruit production.In November 1899, 75 plants were sent from Algiers to Jamaica. They were kept in a nursery until February 1901 and then 69 were planted at Hope Gardens. The female palms ultimately bore large bunches of fruits but they were ready to mature in October during the rainy season and, accordingly, the fruits rotted and fell. Only occasionally have date palms borne normal fruits in the Bahamas and South Florida.Spanish explorers introduced the date into Mexico, around Sonora and Sinaloa, and Baja California. The palms were only seedlings. Still, the fruits had great appeal and were being exported from Baja California in 1837. The first date palms in California were seedlings planted by Franciscan and Jesuit missionaries in 1769. Potted offshoots from Egypt reached California in 1890 and numerous other introductions have been made into that state and into the drier parts of southern Arizona around Tempe and Phoenix. In 1912, Paul and Wilson Popenoe purchased a total of 16,000 offshoots of selected cultivars in Algeria, eastern Arabia and Iraq and transported them to California for distribution by their father, F.O. Popenoe who was a leader in encouraging date culture in California. It became a profitable crop, especially in the Coachella Valley. There are now about a quarter of a million bearing trees in California and Arizona.
Not many places will these grow and produce, that you would want to live, .
regards,
Azoned
