PALM DESERT, CALIF. — The West Coast Produce Expo kicked off with its farm tour, taking tourgoers behind-the-scenes of date production and organic farming in the Coachella Valley.
The Coachella Valley is known as the date capital of the U.S., with more than 90% of commercial dates grown in this region. Adam Cooper, CEO of Oasis Dates, says Palm Desert and Palm Springs, Calif., were named in honor of the trees that came over from Morocco in the 1920s.
Oasis Dates farms more than 5,000 acres on 50 ranches across California and Arizona and grows about 50% of the country’s medjool dates. Date trees reach maturity at 22 and eventually are replaced when the trees get too tall to safely harvest.
Cooper shares some insight into the vertically integrated organization which grows, processes and packs its dates. He says this fall the company will officially launch its dates to consumers.
“It’s a very exciting time for the date category,” he says. “The No. 1 fastest-growing snack category is dried fruit. It’s very surprising, very interesting to us, this idea healthy sweet treats and dates represented 50% of that growth.”
Dates are on the precipice of big growth, Cooper says, noting, “We’re only in about 12% of households; that’s up 20% this year.”
Dates are a very labor-intensive crop as crews first de-thorn the palms in January ahead of bloom, which happens in February, March and sometimes April. There are male and female trees, and females dictate the variety. Oasis Dates harvests the pollen from male trees, adds mineral salt and then blows the pollen into the trees to pollinate the females.
“For about every 50 females, we need one male,” Cooper says.
Heat, which is prevalent in the Coachella Valley in the summer, is also a critical element in date fruit development. Ignacio Portilla, chief operations officer of Oasis Dates, says the trees need about 5,500 heat hours for optimum fruit development.
“From there, we take 150 days in order for the date to be ripened in the best conditions,” Portilla says.
During the growing season, crews, which attend to the trees in specialized platforms, go up and ban the fruiting arms, thin the fruit to have good aeration and to prevent fungal disease development and then bag the fruit to protect it from birds and pests.
Crews harvest the fruit using platforms and only harvest dates that easily come off the fruiting arm. Sometimes crews make a couple of passes during the harvest season. Portilla estimates crews make about 11 trips on average up each tree throughout the growing season.
Cooper estimates about 1,000 workers will come in for the seasonal tasks.
And then, the season ends after harvest with fertilizer applications in November. Portilla says Oasis Dates applies about 20 metric tons of organic waste compost to help fuel the trees, which includes amino acids, nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, zinc and more.
All dates grown by the company go to the processing facility in Yuma, Ariz., where the fruit is sorted by moisture — either too dry or too wet. Fruit that is too wet can be conditioned to get to the optimum temperature for storage and eating experience. Then the fruit is graded by size, skin and defects into jumbo, large and premium.
Organic Produce From the Earth
Next, tourgoers got a chance to tour Temalpakh Farm, which is owned by the Augustine Band of Cahuilla Indians, one of the smallest federally recognized Native American tribes in the U.S.
The farm spans 66 acres and was once an illegal dump. The farm features large feather artwork created out of some of the recovered tires from that original dump.
“Temalpakh” is a Cahuilla word that translates directly to “from the Earth,” and is a nod to the tribe’s farming practices, which predates the term “sustainability.”
“They only took what they needed. The rest went back into the land because their whole goal was to have this land,” says Adrienne Edmondson, tribal educator for the Temalpakh Farm Education Center.
Temalpakh Farm’s on-site market opened in 2021 and had to shut down due to the global pandemic. It reopened in 2023 with an education center, which highlights sustainability, the history and culture of the Augustine Band of Cahuilla Indians and organic agriculture and plant sciences.
“That’s what sustainability is all about: it’s finding a way for us to live peacefully with others, and when I say others, I’m talking about our animals, the habitation,” Edmonson says.
Temalpakh Farm is a certified organic farm that grows dates, leafy greens, tomatoes, melons, squash, okra and more for both sale at the market and as a wholesaler to local restaurants and retail. The farm deploys shade cloth to both reduce the effects of the summer heat and help reduce pest populations.
The farm also minimizes its electricity usage through the Augustine Tribe’s adjacent 25,000-panel solar energy park.
The tribe, as a sovereign nation, is exempt from California’s Groundwater Management Act, says Lee Frankel, Temalpakh Farm’s farm business manager, but he says the area’s history with groundwater recharge basins has helped the area secure a 100-year water supply even with current usage rates.
Frankel says a challenge for the farm is to find the right crop mix that keeps workers employed year-round, but also what thrives in the area. Sweet potatoes and potatoes have proven successful for thriving in the hot summer months. But Frankel says the area’s general climate helps the farm grow organic produce successfully.
“We’re in a natural and great climate and have lots of experience on our team for lettuce, carrots, radishes, beets and the winter crops,” he says.
He says the team at the farm works with its clients to grow produce that meets the quality specs for organic production.
A major challenge is whiteflies, which carry viruses and hit cucumbers, melons, squash, tomatoes and peppers. So, the farm uses reflective plastic mulch in the rows to help bolster the plant’s canopy to get stronger, as whiteflies are attracted to stressed and weak plants.
He says cilantro plants thrive through March and then mini gem lettuce, too, is also a client favorite.
“There’s a lot of restaurants that will like that we have like 15 items at the same time so that they can kind of have a lot of their dishes taken care of,” he says. “There’s others that just want one product to say, ‘We’ve checked our local box that we need to.’ We grow a lot more of that or kind of pick a crop that makes sense for that class of customers.”
Temalpakh Farm deploys a lot of beneficial insects, including green lacewings and ladybugs to keep pest thresholds down. The farm also uses cover crops and a yearly application of biochar to slowly build up the soil carbon.
Frankel says the farm will be working with University of California researchers to trial some new melon varieties that have whitefly resistance as well as testing some seaweed-based fertility products for winter lettuce.
