Date
The date palm is the tree of the hot desert oasis — famously said to grow with its feet in water and its head in the fire. It needs blistering, rainless summer heat to ripen its fruit, which is why it belts the Sahara-to-Arabia-to-Iran desert zone.
How it grows
Date grows high on a palm, in clusters below the crown of fronds.
What it’s worth to grow
Farm-gate value = the price farmers are paid per kilogram (FAOSTAT producer prices, median of 139 positive country-year observations spanning 2018–2024). It tracks how costly and labour-intensive a crop is to grow — almonds and vanilla command a premium; potatoes and cereals are cheap staples.
Where Earth's climate suits date
Climatic suitability only — scored for every 0.5° of the planet from this crop's temperature and rainfall tolerances (FAO EcoCrop) on AgroClim 1991–2025 normals (AgERA5 temperature, CHIRPS/ERA5 rainfall). It shows where the rain-fed climate permits the crop, not where it is grown today; irrigation lets many crops thrive in drier country than the map suggests (California, Egypt, the Indus and Nile).
Who grows it — and where the climate merely allows it
The climate where it grows
— mean monthly temperature ▍ monthly rainfall — averaged over the actual growing areas (the suitable cells) inside each country, so it reflects where the crop is really grown, not the national average. AgroClim 1991–2025 normals. The 🌧 badge is the last 3 months’ rainfall as a percentage of the 1991–2020 CHIRPS normal (through 2025-12) — the current drought/deluge signal.
Climate envelope · FAO EcoCrop
Deep bar = optimal range; pale bar = absolute tolerance. Beyond the pale bar the crop fails. Latitude tolerance ±40° · soil pH 6–8.5.
Growing calendar & hazards
Flowering in spring, the fruit ripens through the fierce heat of summer and is harvested in autumn; rain at ripening is ruinous, so the driest oases give the best dates.
- Rain & humidity. Rain or high humidity at ripening splits and rots the fruit.
- Cold. Hard frost damages the palm at its northern desert edge.
- Salinity. One of the most salt-tolerant of crops, but extreme salinity still limits it.