Another incredible find in the Coachella Valley desert growing region: dates! Here, dates can be found growing everywhere, in orchard after orchard throughout the region. It is really a sight to see and it is so exciting to be able to share this with you!
I accumulated footage throughout during my sporadic visits to the desert, and am able to share the harvest and packing footage from Coachella’s Best Dates in Coachella, California.
Table of Contents
Different Types of Dates that are Grown
In California, the two types of dates that are grown are characterized as soft and semi-soft, with the semi-soft always needing to be hand harvested. A common example of the semi-soft varieties is the Medjool date. In addition to those two categories, there is the Barhi date that has an additional harvest and is harvested yellow and unripe to reach a different audience!
There is a common misconception that dates are dried, but that is really just how they ripen on the tree. There is no drying on the ground or machine drying. When harvested fresh and ripe, they have wrinkly skin and are soft to the touch. However, if left for extra time on the tree, the dates do get firmer and have more wrinkles on their skin.
Barhi vs. Medjool (Traditional) Dates
Barhi Dates
- Harvested: Unripe (also referred to as semi-ripe) and ripe
- Color: Yellow when sold unripe, brown when sold ripe
- Firmness: Hard when sold as unripe, soft to the touch when sold as ripe
- Shelf-life: A few days (even in cold storage) for the unripe, months in the refrigerator for ripe
- Ripeness: They unripe fruit will not continue ripening after they are harvested and are consumed unripe.
- Harvesting Season: August to mid-September for unripe, and mid-October through November for the ripe fruit
Medjool Dates
- Harvested: Ripe
- Color: Dark purple/burgundy
- Firmness: They are soft to the touch, but even though they are not fully dry, they do still give a little push back
- Shelf-life: These can last for months if they are kept in the refrigerator
- Ripeness: They are harvested ripe and will be of the ripe flavor when consumed, either fresh or after months of storage!
- Harvesting Season: Mid-September through October
How do you eat the Yellow Barhi Dates?
They can be eaten fresh (they are crunchy and really astringent), or baked into pastries. Coachella’s Best Dates recommends baking them the same way as you would an apple.
The main market for the yellow Barhi dates is the Middle Eastern community, both internationally and domestic.
What is the Shelf-life for Dates?
The shelf-life is equivalent to how long the fruit is good for until it can no longer be eaten. The yellow Barhi dates have a short shelf-life, where they are only good for a few days if left out, or a few weeks if they are kept in the refrigerator. If not, they will not last as long. The other date varieties that are grown in California will last in cold storage until the next harvesting season starts, so as long as the dates you buy are stored in your refrigerator, they will last a long time!
How do Dates Grow?
Dates grow on date palm trees. A date orchard looks as though you are looking at a palm tree orchard. And, then you look closer to discover a ton of fruit growing on them! The palm trees can grow very tall, so to manage the trees in older orchards, there is a lot of reach lift usage, where the workers are lifted to care for the fruit, including placing bags during the growing season and when it comes time to harvest.
Dates growing in the California Desert
California’s Coachella Valley is bursting with date trees. There are orchards everywhere! There are many large orchards, and even date trees growing in front yards that get bagged while the fruit is growing. It is really incredible to see in person, and I have stopped multiple times to take pictures at the different growing stages, because date trees are just so different to what I am used to seeing and I think it is so interesting! So, if you are ever in the area, make sure to look around and soak it in!
How are weeds managed in organic date orchards?
At this specific grower, they use sheep to help with weed management. This is necessary for multiple reasons, including to keep pests out of the orchards and away from the growing fruit, as well as to clear the rows for flood irrigation (in fields where that is used).
Why are bags placed around dates while they are growing?
Throughout the date growing process, once the fruit really starts to take off, they are bagged. This is very labor intensive, as workers have to place bags around every cluster of dates that are growing. This is done to protect the fruit from birds and other insects, and to catch any ripe fruit that drops from the tree.
For the dates that do not receive the bags, they are covered in brown paper. This was observed throughout multiple orchards growing the yellow Barhi dates. They use the brown paper to help keep the dust off of the fruit, since spider mites like the dust and they want to avoid both of those! Also, the bags are used to collect ripe fruit as it drops and that is not the case for those sold as the yellow Barhi dates, although it is something to consider as the dates fully ripen on the tree. (Dates are not like other dried fruit, such as figs, where if the ripe fruit dries up and falls to the ground, it gets picked up. With dates, once the fruit falls to the ground, it is done.)
How are Dates Harvested?
Dates are harvested in the same manner that they are grown: very carefully and with a lot of tedious labor.
Depending on the size of the trees, it is very common that a reach lift is used. This is a lift that transports a worker(s) up the trees to harvest the date clusters. They are harvested using a machete, and each cluster of the yellow Barhi dates that are featured below weigh around 45 pounds.
For the yellow Barhi dates, the workers have to spend extra time observing different clusters on different trees to see which ones will be a good harvest for the yellow Barhi date market because the fruit needs to still be yellow and firm (no shriveling should have started by the time they are harvested).
The harvested clusters remain on the reach lift until they complete that round of harvesting, and then they are removed onto a tarp on the ground.
As a side note, the harvesting portion was the most exciting part of my visit because they let me go up on the reach lift! My face pretty much says it all: I love this stuff!
What harvesting tool is used to harvest dates?
A machete is used to harvest the large clusters of dates from the trees.
From this point, there are two ways to pack the harvested dates, but at the end of the day, it is based on the grower and the customer who is buying the product and what they require.
How are Dates Packed?
After being harvested, the large date clusters are then sorted through and either packed in the field or in a separate packing house. In this case, you will see that the difference between the two is if the customer wants the dates still on the vine or individualized and washed.
Packing Dates in the Field
The in-field date packing process consists of:
- Sorting through the large clusters of dates and removing those that are of bad quality with clippers.
- Dusting them off, using paint brushes, to improve their appearance.
- Clipping sections off of the large clusters to fit into the boxes they are packing
- Weighing the boxes to make sure they meet the customer specification, closing the boxes and packing them on a nearby truck
These are then transported to a nearby cooler. The yellow Barhi dates, in particular, have a very short shelf-life, so cold storage is very important and the sooner they are cooled, the longer the shelf-life they will have.
Packing Dates in a Packinghouse
Dates that arrive at the packing house have already been pre-sorted in the field and cut down into smaller, more manageable vines.
Date packing in a packing house consists of:
- Sorting through the harvested product to remove the ones that are of bad quality, such as those fruit that have already started turning brown, aren’t firm enough for this market, physical defects, etc.
- Removing the dates from the vine to be washed
- Washing the dates, including with the use of sanitized wash water
- Packing the dates into boxes for the end consumer
There are certain customers and regions that will only accept the dates off the vine (e.g., Australian customers), while others prefer to sell them on the vine. This, as well as the grower, will ultimately determine how they are packed.
Date Growing, Harvesting & Packing Video
You can see the video covering all of the growing, harvesting and packing processes below!
How do you Order Dates Online?
The specific date grower featured, Coachella’s Best Dates, has an online marketplace on Amazon that you can order from, which you can access HERE.
Featured Grower Information
I would like to thank Coachella’s Best Dates for the visit and for allowing the content to be shared. Coachella’s Best Dates is a date grower located in the Coachella Valley and you can learn more about them on their website.
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Hi Megan,
How do I freshen up dates once they have begun to sugar?
thanks for the informative story!
Very informative article!
Good explanation, I am on a date diet it’s working well, it’s still a
Lot of manual labour picking dates. I don’t know why they don’t grow in Australia. Thanks for the film clip.