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GLIMPSE OF HISTORY
MARIONNET SARL - FRANCE
Marionnet SARL is a family company in the
agricultural sector in France. Mr. Alexandre
Marionnet founded the company in Soings, 200
km south of Paris, in 1888. He started
growing grapes, and building wooden barrels
for storing the wine. His son André,
followed him and first introduced the
culture of Asparagus in the area. The
success was immediate and the first crops
were sent to Paris by carts driven by horses
in 1930. Soon after, André introduced the
first large scale crops of strawberry
plants. From fruit producer, he became plant
producer and initiated the first research
programs to discover new varieties. His son,
Jacques, now head of Marionnet SARL,
introduced the tissue culture for strawberry
plants, raspberry, black berry, and
asparagus in 1979. It was the first ever
private Tissue Culture laboratory in France.
This new tool enabled him to provide the
market with top quality plants leading him
to the first place on the market.
It is in 1986 that Marionnet SARL secured
its interest in Tissue Culture Date Palms
with the signature of a cooperation contract
with an official laboratory, the L.R.P.V.
(Vegetal Physiology Research Laboratory),
where both laboratories conducted jointly
the basic and applied research. This
cooperation is still ongoing at the present
time. Jacques Marionnet has two sons,
Pascal, the younger, currently assists his
father in the management of Marionnet SARL,
while the elder, Franck, sat up Al Wathba
Marionnet in Abu Dhabi in 1997, and runs it
as its General Manager.
Marionnet SARL, owned in full by the same
family for 114 years, now has a man power of
180 employees, including 15 in the
laboratory, produces over 50 million
strawberry plants, 10 million asparagus
plants and millions of other species yearly.
Its turnover is over 10 million US Dollars.
AL WATHBA MARIONNET LLC – U.A.E.
"Al Wathba Marionnet LLC" is a leading plant
bio-technology company established in Abu
Dhabi in 1997, as part of the U.A.E. Offsets
program between France and the United Arab
Emirates. It is considered to be one of the
world's most important producer of Date
Palms through plant tissue culture
technology. Al Wathba owns a laboratory in
Al Ain city where it propagates high quality
varieties of date palm in mass quantities to
satisfy the increasing demand locally and
internationally. Thus, making U.A.E. an
important center to supply the region and
the world with pest-free, true-to-type
tissue cultured date palms. Al Wathba
Marionnet propagates more than 14 date palm
varieties with origins from; U.A.E, Saudi
Arabia, Iraq and Morocco. Additionally, Al
Wathba looks into the rare date palm
varieties of superior quality and propagate
those which thrive under the climatic
conditions of U.A.E. and the region. Hence,
making rare varieties of date palm available
to farmers in big quantities and at
reasonable costs. Of these rare superior
varieties Al Wathba produces: Zamli, Nawader,
Ashal Al Hassa, Ashal Khalas, Um Ed Dahan,
Mumtaza in addition to the males: Ghannami
and Al Sekka. In the other hand, Al Wathba
Marionnet dedicate itself on producing high
quality date palm trees. This shows clearly
in its strict and accurate production
protocols and procedures, which are kept
updated with the latest developments of
Tissue Culture technology. As part of its
commitment in ensuring the genetic constancy
and true-to-type state of the trees, Al
Wathba Marionnet attaches a great importance
to monitor their genetic stability all along
the in-vitro process through carrying out
genetic finger printing tests. These tests
are regularly carried out on random samples
of plants at several growth stages by the
G.E.V.E.S. "Group for Control and Survey of
Varieties and Seeds" which belongs to the
French Ministry of Agriculture. Nowadays,
hundreds of thousands of Al Wathba Marionnet
palms are producing tons of high quality
dates in different parts of the U.A.E. along
with 16 other countries all around the
world.
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