Methuselah, the 2000 year old date

The Methuselah date palm, 2012
Kibbutz Keturah, Israel

The date palm has been a source of food, medicine, shelter and shade for thousands of years. While the exact date trees grown in the bibical period are long extinct, in 2005, a 2000-year-old date seed recovered from Masada in the Judean dessert was successfully germinated. Genetic analyses have shown that this tree is distinct from all known date palms, and scientists want to see if the ancient tree has any unique medicinal properties no longer found in today's date palm varieties.


Unfortunately, Methuselah, true to its name, appears to be male, so we won't get any ancient fruit. Date palms are dioecious, meaning that there are separate male trees which make pollen, and female trees which make ovules which lead to fruit and seeds after fertilization with pollen from the male. But through careful genetic breeding, Methuselah can be used to pollinate modern species, and some of these offspring will be female. These hybrids can then be recrossed with Methuselah's pollen, to yield a new generation that's mainly the ancient date.