Abstract
Pollen grains cause the great diversity and variations in size, quality and ripening time in date palm. In this regard nine pollen
sources were selected to study the differential behaviour of pollen parents on fruit characteristics of two female cultivars i.e.
Hillawi and Khadrawy. Selected male spathes were excised and stored for anther dehiscence, and made controlled
pollinations. Physical characters including ripening time, bunch weight, fruit length, fruit width, fruit area, pulp weight, seed
weight were highly variables. Among nine pollen sources M8 was superior because of positive association with most of the
variables. Fruits developed from M8 pollinations were prominent with high bunch weight, more sweet in taste (high total
sugars), good fruit size, and reduced seed weight and ripening time. M7 male retained good fruit length and width, and
reduced ripening time and seed weight. Strong positive correlation was found among most of the traits. All the new
combinations developed from pollinating the two date palm cultivars with nine pollen sources were categorized by principle
component analysis. Our results showed that physical traits were very appropriate for studying the metaxenial effect that can
be used for further breeding targets like yield and quality traits.
