The Zahidi Date Palm: Grower’s Notes From Our Fruiting Orchard

Most of what’s written about the Zahidi date palm comes from nursery catalogs. This comes from an orchard: we grow fruiting Zahidi palms on our farm in Sky Valley, in California’s Coachella Valley, and harvest them every fall. Here’s what the tree is actually like to live with.

What kind of palm Zahidi is

Zahidi is one of the old Iraqi varieties — the name means “of the ascetic” — and it’s the workhorse of date palms: vigorous, forgiving, and a heavy, reliable cropper. Among the commercial varieties it’s known for taking desert extremes in stride and for setting fruit dependably year after year, where fussier varieties take seasons off. The palm is a classic Phoenix dactylifera look: stout trunk, blue-green canopy, and in late summer, heavy strands of round golden fruit that you can see across the grove.

We grow these. Golden Zahidi Dates — Nutty, Less Sweet, Never Sticky | California Farm-Direct from our family farm in Sky Valley, California — from $15/lb, shipping included. See them →

What ours do in Sky Valley

Our Zahidi palms fruit through brutal summer heat and the occasional desert cold snap, on compost-built soil with no sprays. The fruit passes from yellow khalal through rutab to golden tamar, and we harvest at full ripeness — the firm, nutty, semi-dry stage Zahidi is famous for. One mature palm carries serious weight in fruit; it’s why Zahidi was historically planted as a sure-thing calorie crop before it became a connoisseur baking date.

We’ve kept a public grow journal of this orchard on PalmTalk since December 2020 — the thread is here — if you want years of real planting, heat and growth notes rather than a catalog blurb.

Thinking of growing one?

Zahidi wants what all date palms want: serious heat, full sun, deep watering, and patience — figure years, not seasons, to first fruit, and a true crop needs a male pollinator or hand pollination, because date palms are male or female trees. It’s one of the more forgiving varieties to start with. We don’t sell palms or offshoots at the moment; if that’s something you’d want from our orchard down the road, call the farm and say so — (760) 501-1845 — because knowing the interest exists is how it becomes worth doing.

Taste the tree first

The fastest way to know if Zahidi is your palm is to eat what it makes. Golden Zahidi from our fruiting palms is in stock from $15, shipping included — firm, nutty, less sweet than Medjool, and the best baking date we grow. More on the fruit: What are Zahidi dates? and Zahidi vs Medjool.

Written by Jason Shopshear, who grows Medjool, Zahidi and Barhi date palms at Desert Sun Dates in Sky Valley, California, and has the pollination-season sunburns to prove it.