Dates

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Dates
(Item)
Weight 1
Bulk 1

Dates are a tasty fruit produced by Date Palm trees.

Source

Before a Date Palm will produce dates, the tree must first be fertilized by applying 1 Saltpeter. After a while, a number of dates will ripen, which can be harvested by anyone carrying Saltpeter.

The menu shown on the Palm Tree is:
Gather Dates and Fertilize with Saltpeter

Upon harvesting the dates, the saltpeter is automatically applied to the tree.

Cost

• 1 Saltpeter

Use

• Used in Cooking as an ingredient in meals.
• Used to make the ambrosia for Ra in the Test of Festivals
• Used to build a Living Land Tower for the Test of Towers.

Date Notes for

Date yields are not random. Dates are produced similar to Mandibular Glue in an Ant Colony. The cycle is repeating and the decay or yield is similar to the health of the ants, in that it declines and augments but it doesn't do this at the same rate as an Ant Colony.

There are 3 segments to the grow cycle:

• Low Production = only a few dates
• Medium Production = 5 to 10 dates
• Peak Production = 18 to 29 dates

The production cycle is:

Start Cycle:

1. Low Production A: 1 - 4 days with harvests of 1-4 dates
2. Medium Production: 1 - 2 days with harvests of 5-10 dates
3. Low Production B: 1 - 6 days with harvests of 1-5 dates
4. Peak Production: 1 or 2 harvests of 15-29 dates

End cycle

There are other factors in collecting peak dates. Because date trees are not private anyone can collect from them. If another player hits the lucky day they get a bonanza. But for the majority of days the trees give very little which discourages active date farming.

The best strategy is to continue to collect from the trees noting when you get to the medium production stage (5-10) which is the indicator there will be big harvest soon.

Old Notes

I've got date yields as high as 17 from one tree at a time. However, yields of one or two are more common. If there is a pattern, I have been unable to determine it. JulianJaynes 14:32, 19 April 2009 (EST)

I can't confirm this 100%, but I believe it takes 2 hours for the first date to appear after fertilizing it. If you check, after the initial 2 hours, there will only be one date. But the longer (after the 2 hours), the more dates appear. In other words, the longer they remain unharvested, the more dates that keep adding to the tree's inventory. I checked at 1 hour and 1.5 hours, no dates. But there was 1 date after 2 hours... ~Cegaiel

I was making a circuit of the same 6 date trees about every hour and a half (real time) and some trees would have immature dates and some would have dates ready for picking. Yield was anywhere between 1 and 20, even with minimal time between fertilizing and harvesting. -Detour, Sept 2010

I have had harvests as high as 22 dates on one tree. On the neighboring tree, there was only one date. Both trees were harvested at the same time. -Peacefulness, Tale 7, Nov 2015

Required By

Assimilation Bath, Test of Festivals, Guilds/Festivals, Test of Towers

Produced By

Date Palm, Saltpeter