Seed propagation:
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Useful for breeding purposes, is not a proper method of date palm vegetative propagation, and should be discouraged. Reasons in favour of discouraging seed propagation, are the following:Date palm is a dioecious species and consequently half of the progeny will be males and half will be females, with no certain way to determine at an early stage the sex of the progeny, nor fruit or pollen quality prior to flowering (often only seven years later), Female plants originating from seedlings usually produce late maturing fruits of variable and generally inferior quality compared to established clonal palmsDate palms are heterozygous, and thus there will be much variation within the progeny, and desirable characteristics of the parent palm may be lost. In other words, it is not true to type propagation and no two seedling palms are alike;Seedlings differ considerably with regard to production potential, fruit quality and harvesting time, making them very difficult to market as one harvest. The above reasons result in waste of time, space and money.

Offshoot propagation, also called asexual or vegetative propagation, offers the following advantages:

Offshoot plants are true to type to the parent palm.

The offshoot plant will bear fruits 2 - 3 years earlier than seedlings.

The offshoot selected for removal must be disease and pest free and at least three to five years old with a base diameter between 20 and 35 cm ,weighing over 10 kg but not more than 25 kg because of handling difficulties