Pollination
Pollination of the female fruits is conducted in late February and beginning of March which is, according to the Coptic calendar still used for agricultural purposes by the Manasir, the end of the month Amshir. During this season the stout male spathes split and their inflorescences reach maturity. Fresh strands of flowers are carefully picked out of the male clusters and packaged to strands of two called Rabetah Qaru'ah (ربطة قرعة). The Manasir consider the variety of a potent male seedling irrelevant and pollinate all their female inflorescences from the same male tree. The process of pollination is called Qaffes (قفّز) and can be carried out by any person physically able to climb the palm tree. In each spathe of female inflorescence about 8-15 packages are tucked between the fruit bearing spikelets. An adult female palm produces around 15 to 25 spathes, each spathe containing 150 to 200 date bearing spikelets.
Read more about this topic: Date Cultivation In Dar Al-Manasir