When we stopped by the Yuma Visitor Center to ask about what there is to see and do nearby, the helpful folks there made several suggestions, but emphasized that we really shouldn’t miss Martha’s Garden Date Farm Tour.
A little Internet research told us Martha’s has regularly scheduled tours (10:30 AM and 1:30 PM) November through March for $10 per person. If they don’t have 10 people signed up for the tour, the tour gets cancelled. Yet, they can only accommodate 20 on the tram, so advanced reservations are encouraged.
Tour guide Chris Denning (center in red plaid shirt) explains the processes involved in raising a successful crop of Medjool Dates. I’m far forward in the tractor that pulls the tram. This allowed me to ask Chris a lot of questions for this article.
When we arrived at the Date Farm, we were told that the tour would be one and a half hours long. My first thoughts were: (a) I don’t need to know that much about dates and (b) this could be really tedious. Turns out, the tour was fascinating, mostly due to our excellent tour guide, Chris Denning.
Medjool Dates
First things first. Martha’s produces medjool dates. Medjools are big semi-sweet dates that people have cultivated for thousands of years in places hot and dry, such as the Middle East and, more recently, Yuma, Arizona. I’m enjoying one right now. EXCELLENT!
We had no idea raising dates could be this complicated. To say that date farming is labor-intensive would be a gross understatement. For example, to develop a commercially viable date crop, the female trees must be hand-pollinated. At one point on the tour, we observed this process.
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Martha’s Garden Date Farm workers hand-pollinating the female date trees. At the end of the long yellow arm on the tractor is a platform with three guys carefully pollinating each female seed. Most of these laborers are from across the border in Sonora, Mexico. With the new state law mandating the Arizona minimum wage of $10 an hour, that’s what they make for this hard, hot work.
This experience told us that the first thing date farmers must learn is to be able to tell the difference between male and female date trees. Were it me, I’d make the female trees wear dresses … thus reducing the chance of mistaken identity.
Chris described Martha’s Garden as a “boutique” date farm. They only produce about half a million pounds of dates annually. By comparison, their larger competitor across the Valley produces more than 20,000,000 pounds.
Date seeds to be pollinated.
They never plant from seeds, but instead plant the offshoots that emerge from the base of the female trees. It takes about 8 years for a new tree to mature and produce viable dates.
Yuma summers are brutally hot and dry. So mature date trees require at least 150 gallons of water daily. The water comes from wells, most of which are about 200-feet deep or more.
I could regale you with many more interesting facts about dates. But what we came away with was this. It’s just a theory, but … Martha’s Garden Date Farm offers extensive tours, not to sell dates, but to demonstrate to would-be competitors just how difficult and risky this enterprise is. We can assure them we will not be in the date business anytime soon.
With the tour over, we enjoyed a delicious date shake … my favorite! Then headed back home to Tucson. That said, there are several places we want to visit and experience upon returning to Yuma, probably in the fall of 2017. Would like to rent a dune buggy and take an excursion over the Imperial Sand Dunes 20-some miles west of Yuma. And a cruise on the Colorado River sounds really nice. Stay tuned.
Do we recommend Martha’s Garden Date Farm Tour. Indeed we do.
