Blame it to the planting materials?!

The planting materials from mainstream oil plam breeders in Malaysia are of high potential with quality dictated by increasingly strcit standards. The materials are supplied mainly as germinated seeds. The seeds vary in shape and size but, except for very small seeds needing more nursery care, that has no bearing on performance. Barring contamination, the materials are all Dura X Pisifera (DxP)F subscript 1 hybrids though not completely heterozygous as pure parental lines are not readily available. Among the segregants will be some genetically inferior plants, identifiable if growing conditions are optimal but harder to distinguish in poor nurseries and fields. Genetical aberrants, such as grassy leaves, few and erect fronds, wide internodes, flat top crowns, stiff pinnae, crown disease, genetic orange spotting, chimaeras and white streak palms, are almost always low yielding and should be removed by nursery culling or field posinoning. Generally, overall growth and foliage colours are determined by growing conditions while plant habit is more under genetic control. Breeders have also attempted to breed for dwarf types as tall palms are more difficult to harvest. Dwarfism is under genetic control but the challenge has been to comnbine it with high oil yields. Fruit yield itself is largely determined by agronomic conditions and practices but, of its component bunch number and bunch size, the latter is more devided by genetics though expression is influence by age and environment. Planting materials with few large bunches or many small ones, both routes achieving the same yield, are possible. Larger bunches entail more loose fruit picking for the same bunch ripeness while smaller bunches enjoin more harvesting. Bunch oil content, unlike bunch production, is largely deternmined by genetics though actual factory extraction rates will depend on ripeness and recovery. Oil composition is also under genetic control and there is interest to produce different types of palm oil through breeding and, more recently, by genetic engineering. The longevity and value of the oil plam crop cycle mandates through debate of any new breeding target and method lest planting materials become the problem.