Shaping the future of date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) through new genetic improvement strategies

Conventional breeding of date palm (Phoenix dactylifera ) is inherently challenging due to its long generation time, dioecious nature, and high genetic heterogeneity. However, current developments in genomics and molecular biology offer promising avenues for accelerating breeding programs, particularly through high-throughput technologies including functional genomics. This article reviews genomic tools such as like CRISPR-Cas9 (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats-CRISPR-associated protein 9) that may bring significant changes in date palm breeding. The CRISPR-Cas9 system enables scientists to accurately target genomic regions, which helps enhance breeding accuracy by adding advantageous traits and eliminating unfavorable genes through precision editing. Transcriptome and metabolome analyses have also explained the regulation of thousands of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and metabolic pathways under environmental stress. These studies contribute to enhance the knowledge of stress tolerance mechanisms, which include the secondary metabolic process of flavonoids. Genomic studies illustrating single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-based diversity between cultivars from north African and the Arabian Gulf provide new genetic resources for selective breeding. The work relates genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and miRNA profiling to elucidate key regulatory networks involved in fruit development and stress resilience. The integration of such advanced technologies, especially the CRISPR-Cas9 system, is revolutionizing the landscape of date palm breeding, opening new avenues for accelerated development of superior cultivars that meet the needs of modern agriculture.