Abstract
Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L; Arecaceae) is one of a few fruit trees that can remarkably grow in dessert agroecosystems that are characterized by extreme temperature fluctuations. Due to increasing demands for dates in the global market and commercial cultivation in many countries, the tree is currently under extensive research in many countries, particularly to improve the germplasm using different molecular tools. Most molecular techniques largely depend on good quality DNA in significant quantities, which are highly compromised by the presence of various contaminants in DNA. The traditional cetyltrimethylammoniumbromide (CTAB) based method has failed to produce good quality DNA from date palm due to hard fibrous nature of tissue. On the basis of previous studies, commercial DNA extraction kits are not economical although they are very effective. Therefore, we have developed an improved DNA extraction protocol by modifying the original CTAB method to produce extra pure DNA in large quantities. The novel method has been validated using different quality testing approaches. This cost-effective method can be used successfully for DNA extraction from date palm. Moreover, this improved method may have potential for DNA extraction from other palms that have similar leaf texture to date palm leaves, but this method needs to be tested for other palms before being used. The improved method has following key modifications:•Grinding of plant tissue in liquid nitrogen and subsequent lysis of cells in CTAB buffer that has increased concentration of ß-mercaptoethanol•Repeated steps of chloroform: IAA extraction and ethanol washing•Addition of RNase A before the DNA precipitation step.