Will Date Palm Grow in Kerala, South India?

I found this little plant sprouting in a garden pot at home and pulled it out thinking that it is a weed. Suddenly I realized that it is a date plant sprout as the seed is still there. It has sprouted from a thrown away date seed in garden pot filled with sand. I was quite surprised as I was under the impression that date palms grow only in desert like climate of middle East and not in humid tropical region where I live.

Immediately I transferred it to a large 23 inch garden pot with a long pit made with a pipe to accommodate the long root which i had pulled out. Not sure how much the root has been damaged when I pulled it out inadvertently.

This view is after filling the hole with surrounding soil. Now let us see whether it will continue to grow here.

Meanwhile I searched the web regarding the possibility of growing date palms in my region. To my surprise, Kerala was one of the five states of India listed in a Wikipedia article on date palm cultivation in India, along with Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. Gujarat was mentioned as the top producer state with Kutch being the largest producer of dates in India, around 200,000 Metric Tonnes of fresh fruits! Another interesting fact noted was that India imports 38% of world’s production of dates!

I could see a few YouTube videos of news reports mentioning date palm cultivation at my district Kozhikode and neighbouring district Malappuram. Seemed more like ornamental culture and it was a fantastic sight to see the trees with plenty of golden fresh dates in large bunches in compounds of educational institutions! It has been mentioned that saplings are available at nurseries even in my district and they are being brought from the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu.