Khalifa International Date Palm Award reveals names of the winners of the award’s seventh session

ABU DHABI, 16th February 2015 (WAM) - The General Secretariat of Khalifa International Date Palm Award held a press conference, during which names of the winners of the five categories of the Award’s Seventh Session were announced. At the beginning of the conference, held Sunday morning at the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi and attended by representatives of various media, Dr. Abdelouahhab Zaid, Secretary General of the Award, welcomed the media people and praised their active role in promotion and presentation of the Award and appreciated the role of all media types as partners in distinction and success. The Secretary General said: "Since its inception, Khalifa International Date Palm Award made great strides with the support of President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahayan, and has been honoured by bearing the name of His Highness, a fact that throws on our shoulders the great responsibility of setting out towards broader horizons to achieve pioneering as the first specialised award worldwide." Dr. Abdelouahhab Zaid added that the Award has attracted the most important researchers, experts, farmers and those interested in date palm sector, on both Arab and international levels, to compete for the top ranks of the Award and has also realised a distinct shift in development of date palm and studies thereof as well as a consolidation of date palm position worldwide. He also stressed that the great success and quality shift the Award has achieved came thanks to the great support and attention of President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan as well as the patronage of His Highness General Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces and the close follow-up of H.H. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs and Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Culture, Youth and Community Development and President of the Board of Trustees. The selected winners were as follows: The Category of Distinguished Researches and Studies. The First Winner is: A comprehensive catalogue of common sequence polymorphisms in date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) assembled by whole genome sequencing of 62 cultivars / Dr. Michael Purugganan - New York University Abu Dhabi / UAE. The Second Winner is: Book of Fruit Tree Horticulture Date Palm, Omani Date Palm Cultivars / Royal Gardens and Farms Affairs - Royal Court Affairs / Oman. The Distinguished Producers Category The First Winner is: Date Palm Development Research Unit Department – Date Palm Tissue Culture Laboratory – UAEU / UAE. The Second Winner is: Was Withheld. The Best distinguished Technology The First winner is: Isolation of Conserved DNA Sequences Related to the Human Sex-Determining Region from the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) / Dr. Mohyeldin Solliman Mohammed – King Faisal University / KSA. The Second Winner is: DNA barcoding based on plastid matK and RNA polymerase for assessing the genetic identity of date (Phoenix dactylifera L.) cultivars / Dr. Mohammed Rizk Enan / UAEU – College of Science – Department of Biology / UAE. The Best Developmental Project Category: The First Winner is: Developing Date Palm Cultivation in the Jordan Valley (Palestine) since 2004 / Dr. Nasser Gagob & Eng. Faris Ahmed Zaki / Palestine. The Second winner is: Coachella Valley History Museum / USA. The Category of the Distinguished Personality: The Winner is: Prof. Jose Romeno Faleiro / India. On his part, Dr. Helal Hamid Alkaabi, Head of the Administrative & Financial Committee of Khalifa International Date Palm Award, congratulated the winners and thanked them for their good efforts and the great accomplishments through which they deserved honouring with the top ranks. Dr. Helal Alkaabi pointed out that the number of candidate works of the Seventh Session came to 134 researches and studies of all categories by participants from 23 countries. The most prominent participant countries were: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Oman, Morocco, Palestine, Tunis, Canada, U.S.A, India, Syria, Sudan, Bahrain, Yemen, Iran, Australia, Lebanon, Germany, Libya, Italy and UAE. – Emirates News Agency, WAM – http://www.wam.ae/en/news/emirates-international/1395276590301.html