**6.1 Selection of planning materials**

To a healthy vigorous palm that yield good quality date fruits, one should start with good planting materials whether tissue culture seedlings, offshoots, or mature palms. Planting materials should be adapted to the area where to be grown, in addition of being healthy and free from pests and diseases. Such planting materials should be obtained from nurseries certified for organic date palm production, where strict quarantine measures and protocols are applied. Many serious pests and diseases of date palm including the invasive red palm weevil spread rapidly through movement of infested planting materials [29]. Dubas bug, scale insects, longhorn beetle, and rhinoceros beetle also invade new areas through transportation of

#### **Figure 1.**

*Symptoms of damage on the fruit bunch stalk (left) due to Oryctes elegans and on the trunk (right) due to Jebusaea hammerschmidti.*

#### **Figure 2.**

*Fatal damage caused by the larvae of the longhorn beetle Jebusaea hammerschmidti on the apical meristem (Goumara) of a date palm.*

infested offshoots and mature palms (**Figure 3**). Thus, application of preventive and protective controls through strict implementation of agricultural quarantine controls, as well as non-trading of any offshoots or infected palms, are essential for the establishment of new date palm plantation.
