A RIVERLAND date palm producer will be recording the first history of the species and industry in 2025, following the introduction of the palm to Australian soil to its modern cultivation across the state.
With the support of the prestigious 2024 History Council of South Australian (HCSA) Fellowship, Gurra Downs Date Company manager director Dave Reilly will be putting pen to paper this year to record his more than 20 years of research on the date palm.
Planting his first date palm in the Riverland in 1998, Mr Reilly said “no one had attempted to grow dates commercially in the (region) prior to (The Reilly’s) starting their business”.
“I travelled extensively to remote locations as a young man, read all I could on growing dates, and came across the few articles that exist related to historic plantings,” Mr Reilly told The Murray Pioneer.
“I have collected many memoirs over the years (of key figures in the industry), and there are not too many date palms in the country I haven’t seen in collating the information I needed to begin Gurra Downs.
“The history was very relevant because it gave us linage to cultivators that were successful in the far north of the state, which suggested the Riverland region as a (prime location) for the date to thrive.
“The history also gave us an indication of pest pressures of birds, insects, and animals — things that were challenging to date palms.
“I am probably the custodian alone of these stories.
“To win the fellowship is fantastic, because now, we will be able to get these stories on record so there is a legacy of Australia’s date industry for those who come next.”
The annual HCSA Fellowship aims to foster the researching and writing of South Australian history, with the winner receiving $2000 as well as support accessing the State Library of South Australia (SLSA) collection and the opportunity to share their research with a keynote lecture.
Judge and SLSA team leader of research and discovery David Brooks said Mr Reilly’s project was able “to tell a surprising and engrossing story about South Australia’s multicultural history while also examining the state’s agricultural and environmental histories that proved most compelling”.
Throughout the project, Mr Reilly will explore the date palm from when it first entered Australia in the 1800s from Muslim cameleers, with chapters on its relationship with the Overland Telegraph, the Ghan railway, Mound Springs, Great Artesian Basin, indigenous lands, and outback cattle stations, while also engaging with figures such as botanist Baron Ferdinand von Mueller, the Chaffey Brothers, industrialist Essington Lewis, and Reverend John Flynn.
Having spent the past 26 years expanding date palm operations, importing over 40 cultivars, becoming a registered research and development site, and quickly making Gurra Downs the date palm experts of Australia, Mr Rielly said he hopes to provide the historical account with “a catalogue of cultivars that have entered the area (from) white settlement to the year of 2025”.
“We have distributed date palms now to more than 400 farmers around the country,” he said.
“While we are commercial fruit growers first, and make the plant material available to other growers, such a network allows us to evaluate the tree for performance and climate suitability.
“Research and development are an ongoing project, but by accounting for all the cultivars, it will become a resource for the future and a current agricultural history of South Australia and beyond.”
With the recent heat of the past summer, Mr Reilly said writing the account is being balanced with the picking operations at Gurra Downs.
“The past three summers haven’t been very hot,” he said.
“We need hot and dry, and while there have been a few thunder storms, overall this season has been really good for us.
“I can’t wait to just sit down and get all the (historical) information out of my system, but at the moment we’re picking flat out.”
