Trinidad 77% Dark

Envision spring-time amidst its fullest ‘come-hither’ spectacle, everything around us astir, the air bristling with blossom-scent and bird-song. Some seduce, others swoon, and so passes the season. The date palm is no exception, its ‘love life’ a particularly desire-ridden display. You see, even in nature, date palms crop up as already-paired couples, with males and females primed to woo or be wooed by a nearby mate. As for the matter of pollination, well, that remains a capricious affair: a male palm must rely on a third party—the wind, a bee’s wings—to transfer his pollen to the flowers of a neighboring female. To combat the uncertainties to which nature is prone, the art of hand-pollination was born.  It is a delicate process: pollen collected from male flowers is carefully dusted onto clusters of just-opened female flowers. And if all transpires as intended, the pollinated female will soon burst forth with an abundance of fruit. But a myth persists amongst date farmers: should a fe