MUSCAT: Dr Fuad bin Jaafar al Sajwani, Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, on Thursday inaugurated the Atlas of the most important date palm varieties in the Gulf States, which is part of the project to develop sustainable date palm production systems in the GCC countries.
The inauguration came on the sidelines of the annual regional meetings of the Technical and Steering Committees of the Arabian Peninsula Program on Protected Agriculture and Forage Crops and the Project for the Development of Sustainable Palm Production Systems in the GCC Countries, organised by the ministry in cooperation with the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), with the participation of a number of experts, researchers and specialists from GCC countries and Yemen.
The Atlas includes the vegetative and fruit characterisation and the DNA of the most important palm varieties in the GCC countries with 10 commercial varieties from each country.
It is worth mentioning that the genetic fingerprint of the Gulf palm varieties included in this atlas was implemented in the Department of Biotechnology Research at the Palm Research Centre in the Sultanate.
— ONA
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