Date Palm Genetic Resources and Utilization. Volume 1: Africa and the Americas.

This important reference book provides a comprehensive assessment of date palm genetic resources and utilization in individual date-producing countries worldwide. The book is published in two volumes; each consists of 15 chapters written by prominent scientists of each country and supported with color illustrations and tabulated data. Volume 1 addresses date-producing countries within Africa and the Americas; whereas, Volume 2 pertains to countries in Asia and Europe. This volume presents the current status and prospects of date palm cultivation in the African and American continents. The African countries included are: Egypt, Algeria, Sudan, Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania, Niger, Cameroon, Djibouti, and the Sahelian African countries of Chad, Mali, Somalia, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso and Senegal. In the Americas, the countries covered are the United States, Chile and Peru. Topics discussed in each chapter include cultivation practices, genetic resources and conservation, plant tissue culture, cultivar identification, cultivar descriptions, date production and marketing, processing and novel products and concludes with recommendations for further development. This volume ends with six appendixes presenting available information on each of the above-mentioned countries pertaining to cultivar descriptions and distribution, commercial sources of dates, offshoots and in vitro plants and research institutes and scientific societies concerned with date palm research and production. The book is a valuable resource for students, researchers, scientists, commercial producers, consultants and policymakers interested in agriculture particularly in date palm industry. Readers can derive great benefit from the adoption of the policies and practices discussed to enhance production and expand industrialization of traditional and potentially new date products.