Fabled Judean Date Palm Reborn From Ancient Seeds

[mossy_sloth]

Not sure what forum this should go into...

Ancient seed sprouts date palm
Researchers in Israel say they have succeeded in growing a date palm from a seed that is 2,000 years old.

The seed was unearthed during an excavation of the ancient mountain fortress of Masada 30 years ago and is thought to be the oldest seed ever germinated.

Researchers in Jerusalem have managed to germinate the seed and grow it to a 30-centimetre high plant.

The baby date palm has been nicknamed Methuselah, after a biblical figure said to have lived for nearly 1,000 years.

The researchers' achievement may turn out to be more significant than simply bringing an ancient seed back to life.

The discoverers of Methuselah have now sent some of its leaves off for DNA analysis with the hope it might have medicinal uses that are missing in modern cultivated varieties.

- BBC

source

I think this is pretty amazing...

 

[rynner2]

A tree extinct for a thousand years...

The Jesus tree: Date palm is grown from 2,000-year-old seed
By David Derbyshire
Last updated at 11:43 AM on 13th June 2008


It's the sort of palm that wouldn't look out of place in a modern office.

But there is nothing ordinary - or modern - about this sapling.

The 5ft-tall plant was grown from a 2,000-year-old seed found at the ancient Israeli fortress of Masada.

It came from a Judean date palm tree that could have been growing in the forests between Galilee and the Dead Sea when Jesus was alive.

The discovery has astonished botanists. Previously, the most ancient seed to germinate was 1,300 years old and had been preserved in cold water.

The scientists who grew the seed said it came from a date eaten by one of the 960 Jewish rebels who occupied the Roman garrison at Masada during the great uprising against Rome.

After a three-year siege, the Jews famously committed suicide rather than surrender and become slaves.

The plant has been named Methuselah after the oldest person in the Bible, and is now in the care of Dr Sarah Sallon, a British doctor who runs the Hadassah Medical Organisation in Jerusalem.

'I think it's very exciting,' said Dr Sallon. 'I'm Jewish and the history of this place is very close to my heart. It could have been eaten by one of the inhabitants of Masada shortly before they killed themselves. The fact it comes from that period of history is very moving.'

The seed was discovered inside a jar full of the discarded pits of dates during excavations of Masada in the 1960s.

Dr Sallon - an expert in medicinal plants - soaked the seed in warm water and fertiliser three years ago before she planted it. Within eight weeks it had started to sprout.

At the time, the scientists were unwilling to risk damaging the seed by carrying out radiocarbon dating. But when the time came to transfer the sapling to a bigger pot, the researchers discover fragments of the seed's shell attached to the roots.

Tests on these, reported today in the journal Science, confirmed the sapling was around 2,000 years old - the time when the Masada was in use.

Previously, the oldest seed to produce a plant was a 1,300-year-old Chinese lotus grown in America in the 1990s.

Judean date palms - also known as 'trees of life' - once formed thick forests all along the Jordan River.

The forests were destroyed by the Romans and the Judean date palm became extinct more than 1,000 years ago.

Today, Israel imports palms. So if the sapling bears fruit, it will be first time anyone has tasted a real Judean date for more than a millennium.

However, the team will not know whether the tree is a male or female for another two years.

If the Methuselah tree is female, it could be used for cross-breeding to restore the long extinct species. Early DNA tests suggest the 2,000-year-old plant could share around half its genetic code with modern dates.

The fruit was believed to provide a natural remedy for numerous ailments, ranging from heart problems to constipation. It was also used to treat TB, gut problems, chest infections and worms.

In Roman times, Judean dates were a famous delicacy. The historian Pliny described them as large and delicious.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... -seed.html

 

[EnolaGaia]

The successful resurrection represented by the plant named Methuselah has now been extended via a half-dozen additional Judean date plam trees germinated from 2,000 year old seeds.

A Long-Lost Legendary Roman Fruit Tree Has Been Grown From 2,000-Year-Old Seeds

Scientists have cultivated plants from date palm seeds that languished in ancient ruins and caves for 2,000 years.

This remarkable feat confirms the long-term viability of the kernels once ensconced in succulent Judean dates, a fruit cultivar lost for centuries. The results make it an excellent candidate for studying the longevity of plant seeds.

From those date palm saplings, the researchers have begun to unlock the secrets of the highly sophisticated cultivation practices that produced the dates praised by Herodotus, Galen, and Pliny the Elder.

"The current study sheds light on the origins of the Judean date palm, suggesting that its cultivation, benefiting from genetically distinct eastern and western populations, arose from local or introduced eastern varieties, which only later were crossed with western varieties," the researchers wrote in their paper.

"These findings are consistent with Judea's location between east-west date palm diversification areas, ancient centres of date palm cultivation, and the impact of human dispersal routes at this crossroads of continents."

In an ancient palace fortress built by King Herod the Great, and caves located in southern Israel between the Judean Hills and the Dead Sea, archaeologists retrieved hundreds of seeds from the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera).

Then, a team of scientists, led by Sarah Sallon of Hadassah Medical Organisation in Israel, sorted through this bounty.

They selected 34 seeds they thought were the most viable. One was separated out as a control; the remaining 33 were carefully soaked in water and fertiliser to encourage germination.

After this process, one more was found to be damaged, and was subsequently discarded; the remaining 32 seeds were planted.

Of these, six of the seeds successfully sprouted. They were given the names Jonah, Uriel, Boaz, Judith, Hannah and Adam. (A previous attempt by Sallon and colleagues published in 2008 produced a single sapling; it was named Methuselah.)

Seedlings in hand, the scientists could now run tests and analyses they couldn't perform on seeds alone.

First, they collected fragments of the seed shells still clinging to the roots of the plants. These were perfect for radiocarbon dating - which confirmed the seeds date back to between 1,800 and 2,400 years ago.

Then, the researchers could conduct genetic analyses of the plants themselves, comparing them to a genetic database of current data palms. This showed exchanges of genetic material from eastern date palms from the Middle East, and western date palms from North Africa.

This suggests sophisticated agricultural practices - deliberate breeding to introduce desirable traits into the cultivated trees.

"Described by classical writers including Theophrastus, Herodotus, Galen, Strabo, Pliny the Elder, and Josephus, these valuable plantations produced dates attributed with various qualities including large size, nutritional and medicinal benefits, sweetness, and a long storage life, enabling them to be exported throughout the Roman Empire," the researchers wrote.

"Several types of Judean dates are also described in antiquity including the exceptionally large 'Nicolai' variety measuring up to 11 centimetres (4.3 inches)."

Indeed, the researchers found that the ancient seeds were up to 30 percent larger than date seeds today, which probably meant the fruit was larger, too. ...

If scientists can discover how the date seeds retained their viability for so long, that could have important implications for agriculture.

The once-rich date groves gradually declined after the fall of the Roman Empire. Judean dates could still have been cultivated in the 11th century CE, the researchers said, but certainly by the 19th century, the groves were completely gone.

Now, those famous dates may make a comeback - at least for scientific purposes. ...

SOURCE: https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-have-grown-date-palms-from-2-000-year-old-seeds

 

[Lord Lucan]

Excellent, I am rather fond of dates.

 

[Kondoru]

I bet its too sugary for me to enjoy.