Outback date farm bounces back after crop destroyed by rain

The Northern Territory's largest date farm is on the road to recovery after heavy rains in February seriously damaged the operation, with early signs pointing to a solid crop developing in the coming months.

Large parts of Central Australia and the Barkly region were impacted by severe weather and flooding earlier this year, as the entire Northern Territory experienced a significant wet season.

The rain came at a terrible time for the Tamara Date Plantation, 70 kilometres south-east of Alice Springs, with the downpour starting at the same time as the harvest and destroying much of the crop.

However, the Desert Fruit Company, the cooperative that owns the date farm, is focusing on coming back stronger, and workers are in the field pollinating the palms in preparation for harvest early next year.

Pollinating process

Like many commercial date farms, the palm trees at the Tamara Date Plantation are manually pollinated.

Workers remove the pollen from the male plant, place it in a jar connected to two pipes, and blow it onto the female plant when it opens its spathe.

This process started in June, which was ahead of schedule as some of the trees had flowered earlier than usual.

The next stage in the process is bagging, which company director and farmer Kim McKay said would be in full swing by October, with many palms requiring bagging at the same time.

"You're trying to bag as many as you can each day, mainly to protect them from birds and to a lesser extent certain insects,"

Mr McKay said.

Signs of a good season

With an earlier start to pollination, some palms could be ready for harvest soon, but most of it will come towards the end of February and the start of March.

Mr McKay said the plantation usually fluctuated between stronger and weaker seasons on a yearly basis, due to variation in the flowering process, but this should be a good year.

"Our plantation has a biennial nature to it, whereas one year we get a real lot of flowers and then the next year not quite as many," he said.

"And this year we would normally expect to have a lot of flowers and that is indeed happening."

Ramadan changes business plan

The largest market for the farm's Barhi dates has been Muslim communities observing Ramadan, as the Islamic holy period coincided with the harvest period in recent years.

However, Ramadan is moving further away from the harvest, as it follows the lunar cycle and occurs approximately 10 days earlier each year in the Gregorian calendar.

The fruit would be transported during its yellow, or khalal, stage to ensure it was ready for Ramadan, which required cool storage to prevent further ripening.

As the timing of this became more challenging, Mr McKay said the farm had decided to look into other market opportunities.

"As [Ramadan] moves away from our harvest time, we decided we don't want to take the risk any longer of providing a date that is fraught with difficulty keeping in the hard, yellow sage," Mr McKay said.