Sex determination in date palm (Phoenix dactylifera)

Date palm is a strictly dioecious fruit tree species cultivated in semi-arid to dry areas in the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan and plays very important roles in the economies of these countries. However, despite its economic, cultural and religious importance, the inability to discriminate male and female date palms at the seedling stage has limited its commercial cultivation via seeds. Good prospects and anticipated gains for date palm plantations can be fully achieved only, if sex determination can be easily done at early seedling stage. The most efficient, feasible and reliable tool to achieve it would be the use of molecular genetic markers associated with sex determination genes or genomic regions. This book addressed this biological and evolutionary problem by adopting a unique and novel comparative genomics approach. Findings from this research, represents a milestone in gender segregation and sexual systems in date palm. Although, the identified sex-linked molecular markers might not completely unravel the mechanisms of sex determination in date palm, it serves as the first significant blueprint of gene specific molecular marker.