Salalah, the city fallen in love with its coconut palm...

Salalah is the second largest city in the Sultanate of Oman, and the largest city in the Dhofar Province. Salalah attracts lot of tourists from other parts of Oman and GCC during the Khareef season, which starts from July to September.The climate of the region and the monsoon allows the city to grow some vegetables and fruits like coconut.In the last 20 years, the coconut palm has become the symbol of Salalah city. This palm is presented in all the touristic documents of the city: for instance, the map of Salalah city is showing coconut palms in the beach and a bunch of fruits of the king coconut indicating that importance of the coconut palm in Oman is much more than agricultural. In environmental, cultural and tourism terms, coconut palm became an integral part of the identity of the Dhofar region. 

Although Coconut palms are ubiquitous in the landscape, more attention must be paid to cultural and ecotourism aspects. Coconut palms are currently confined to a role of creating an atmosphere, whereas they ought to be more effectively illustrating the specificity of the local culture.

In the future, planting of fast growing Tall-type coconuts for landscaping in the city should be avoided due to danger of falling of fruits and leaves, and even climbers from coconut palms, and the palms falling on the houses. In many Pacific countries, only dwarf coconut palms are now planted in the cities.

Coconut seller, street market in Salalah

Coconut seller, street market in Salalah

Camels under coconut palms: the climatic exception

The mountains in Dhofar are forming a kind of moon-shaped crescent which isolates the Salalah plain from the rest of the desert. The humid air coming from the sea elevates because of these mountains. It causes a higher rainfall than in other regions of Oman. Water coming down from the mountains generate a higher water table. Here can grow both coconut palms and date palms, and it is not rare to see camels walking under the coconut palms.

A very rare case of date palms and coconut palms growing near the sea in the same garden

The beach near this garden with both coconut and date palms

Coconut varieties available in Oman

Harvest of bunch on a Tall-type coconut
palm for fruit component analysis

The traditional Omani tall populations constitute the majority of the varieties in Oman. They seemed to be adapted to the harsh growing conditions. They are in danger because there is a risk for them to mix with the imported varieties, especially with the imported Dwarf x Tall hybrids, dwarfs and King Coconut by natural cross pollination. 

Imported varieties in Oman are as follows; 

1. The Sri Lanka Yellow Dwarf (SLYD) from the Ambakelle seed garden in Sri Lanka. This population is quite heterogeneous, with some palms growing faster than normal dwarf with a bole formation at the base of the trunk. For reproduction/multiplication preferably those having real dwarf habit palms (short stature, slender stem with closely set up leaf scares, short and narrow fronds, short and narrow leaf lets, short bunch stalks etc.) should be chosen. Some of those dwarf palms in Oman produces big fruits, some small fruits, and it must be checked if this difference is due to genetic factors or due to environment effect. Those having very tall growing habit with big bole formation at the base may also be sampled and multiply for variety evaluation purpose. 
2. Three different strains of variety King Coconut, with oval, pointed and elongated (bottle shape) fruits. These palms were identified as typical King Coconut, a semi tall coconut variety from Sri Lanka. Some of the coconut palms in Oman are looking like King Coconut but with a more pronounced dwarf habit. They could be the Pemba Red Dwarf from Tanzania. In the past many Omani lived in Zanzibar and they could have brought this dwarf a long time ago. 
3. A red dwarf with oval fruits is also available. It looks like the Chowgat Orange Dwarf of India or the Sri Lanka Red Dwarf that are closely similar. 
4. Two kinds of hybrids, the MAWA created in Côte d’Ivoire, imported from Malaysia and the CRIC65 (Sri Lanka Tall x Sri Lanka Green Dwarf and Sri Lanka Tall x Sri Lanka Yellow Dwarf) created in Sri Lanka which is locally named Kalim Bahim. These two hybrids are described in the book about coconut varieties by Roland Bourdeix. 

In addition to those varieties, tall coconut palms with yellow fruits can also be seen in farmers’ field in a very few numbers and they looks very much the Gon Thembili variety from Sri Lanka. These palms too should be sampled and planted in a variety evaluation trials. 

The imported hybrids produce very well, often 150 to 200 nuts per palm per year under good management condition with drip irrigation. So we think that the importation of these hybrids was a great success: it allows the concerned farmers to produce at least 50% more coconut fruits than by planting local Talls.

We surveyed 27 of the 30 sites selected for the population dynamic survey for mite populations. Within these sites, we successfully conducted varietal identification for about 85 % of the selected palms. We also identified most of the palms planted in the old experimental fields of the Salalah research station. This visual identification was completed by an analysis of DNA using molecular markers. This analysis should be conducted on at least 100 of the selected palms.

The details of the past coconut variety importation to Oman is given in table 1.

Date	Country	Varieties imported	Remarks
1983	Sri Lanka	1. Philippine Dwarfs (We identified them as Sri Lanka Green Dwarfs) 2. King Coconut 3. Dikiri Pol (We identified them as Sri Lanka Yellow Dwarf) 4. Kalim Bahim (We identified them as dwarf x tall hybrids)	Imported in very limited numbers and planted in a variety block in the Salalah Research Station
1986	Malaysia	Mawa hybrid Malaysia Yellow Dwarf	Identified within the research station in an experimental plot
March 1988	Sri Lanka	King Coconut CRIC65 (Tall x Green Dwarf) CRIC65 (Tall x Yellow Dwarf)	King coconut and CRIC65 can be identified both in Salalah Research station and in Farmers’ field
September 1988	Sri Lanka	Green Dwarf Yellow Dwarf	Could be seen in Salalah Research Station and in farmers’ field

The Coconut Research Station

King coconut in Oman

In Oman, three different strains of variety King Coconut, with oval, pointed and elongated (bottle shape) fruits were found. These palms were identified as typical King Coconut, a semi tall coconut variety from Sri Lanka. Some of the coconut palms in Oman are looking like King Coconut but with a more pronounced dwarf habit. They could be the Pemba Red Dwarf from Tanzania. In the past many Omani lived in Zanzibar and they could have brought this dwarf a long time ago.

Pioneer coconut plantation on arid beaches

Some coconut plantations have been newly installed in desert beach, close and linked to touristic places... This gives an opportunity to link tourism activities with the conservation of coconut varieties, and also to create new concepts and structures for tourists, such as coconut eco museum... 

Satellite view and picture of a new beach coconut plantation and touristic place

Large and almost unexploited sandy beaches....

 

Some beaches are only rocky without sands

A lot of  birds and fishes lives there

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Coconut islands in the desert

Desert Island and Sea Island.... 

From the point of view of multi functional landscape management, some coconut plantations isolated in Oman desert areas are comparable to islands in seas or lakes. The only thing is that these islands are insulated by "a sea of sand" instead of water... The coconut palms growing there are isolated  from the reproductive point of view, because no or very few pollen comes from outside. So the coconut palms cross only within the same plantation. This gives an interesting opportunity for conservation purposes by using the Polymotu concept.

An Omani "Island in the desert" when compared to....

A Polynesian coral island....

Sometimes strong winds are blowing here....