MONTH
Feb 08
TOPIC
Circle Weeding in Young Oil
Palm Using
a Hand-Held Motorised Grass
Cutter
Breeding for High Oil Yielding
Tenera Palms
AUTHOR
ABSTRACT
ENY FITHRI RAMBE,
ZULKASTA SINURAYA,
CHEONG KENG KONG
AND MANJIT SIDHU
Asian Agri Group, R & D
Centre, Bahilang Estate, Tebing
Tinggi, Deli, North Sumatera,
Indonesia
The use of Mucuna bracteata as a ground cover in oil palm
plantations brings with it a serious drawback i.e. its rapid growth
necessitates very frequent weeding of the circles resulting in
higher requirement of workers and higher cost of weeding. By
using a motorised hand-held grass cutter a worker could weed
slightly more than thrice the number of circles achieved by
manual weeding and the cost saving per hectare per round could
be reduced by Rp 42 870 (RM15.88).
MATHEWS J, TEO K W
AND IP W M
IOI Research Centre, 73009
Batang Melaka, Negeri
Sembilan Darul Khusus,
Malaysia
Keywords : Circle weeding, motorised cutter, Mucuna bracteata,
oil palm.
The family and individual selection (FIS) breeding programmes
of Deli Duras can either be genetically dissortative mating
system to create genetic variability within the germplasm or
genetically assortative to maintain inbred lines through selfing,
full or half sibling mating. IOI ‘s first generation inbred line
duras Pkg 119 or D24 of Klanang Bharu origin planted as part
of the first cycle (C1) of the limited breeding programme (LBP)
have desirable traits such as high bunch number, thick fruit
mesocarp, high mesocarp oil and thin shell, nevertheless,
showed inbreeding depression characterised by low bunch
weight due to poor fertility. When the Pkg 119 inbred lines were
hybridised with AVROS and Ekona pisiferas, the resultant tenera
progenies showed marginally high total oil yield with high
percentage of fruit set as in DP5, DP6, DP10 and DP11 trials.
When D24 or Pkg 119 was subjected to repeated self-fertilisation
for the development of the second cycle (C2) limited breeding
programme, further inbreeding depression was observed
characterised by low yields and low fruit set in the dura
progenies. However, such duras have the potential to develop
tenera hybrids through heterosis breeding and it should be
verified by progeny testing.
The duras of C2 LBP were also developed through half sib
crosses and the tenera progenies developed is being tested in
DP22 trial. The duras of half sibs crossed with AVROS pisifera
generally showed comparable yield with tenera progenies
developed from DxD of different families. Inbreeding depression
was not observed in the half sib dura palms. Most of the teneras
developed from C2 LBP were commercially planted from 1999
and yielded fresh fruit bunch (FFB) ranging from 25 t to 31.00 t
in the seventh year after planting depending on the type of the
soil. The oil extraction rates (OER) had commercially increased
due to the contribution of the teneras developed from both C1
and C2 LBP materials.
Keywords: Oil palm breeding, inbreeding coefficient,
heterozygosity, progeny testing.