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In 2005, Elaine Solowey made history when she managed to germinate a 1,900-year-old date palm seed, bringing an ancient species back to life.
Now, the California-born Solowey has set her sights on rescuing dozens of other threatened or endangered types of plants, with hopes of rehabilitating habitats and finding ways to help farmers and others cope with a warming climate in an already arid region.
Revered by plant geeks like a rock star, Solowey, 68, works out of an office crammed with books, old coffee and spice jars filled with seeds, and little vials with different shapes of thorns. She also has two run-down greenhouses that lack even basic temperature control.
Scientists in Israel are growing date plants from 2,000-year-old seeds.
Dr. Elaine Solowey, director of the Center for Sustainable Agriculture of the Arava Institute, and Dr. Sarah Sallon, director of the Louis L. Borick Natural Medicine Research Center of Hadassah Hospital, harvested 111 ancient Judean dates from 2,000-year-old seeds. The ground-breaking agriculture techniques to make the seemingly botanically impossible feat possible grabbed global headlines in 2020.
Dates from the date-palm tree Hannah. Photo: Debbie Eisner
Israelis eat the most chicken per person in the world.
Israelis eat a whopping 64-kilograms (141 pounds) of poultry per person, the highest per capita consumption in the world according to OECD and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development statistics. The world average of chicken-per-person, according to the OECD report, sits at 31.3 kg.