Month: February 2020

The American oil palm, Elaeis oleifera (Figure 1) possesses attributes of interest such as slow height increment rate (Hardon and Tan, 1969; Obasola, 1973; Meunier and Boutin, 1975; Tam et al., 1977) and high I.V. (Hardon, 1969; Macfarlane et al., 1975). Lately, its high carotene content has been advocated as potentially useful for the pharmaceutical … Read more

The migration of labour in the agricultural sector to the industrial sector greatly necessitates the development of machines to replace the time-consuming and manual field activities. In the industrial sector, workers have lighter and easier job which are in contrast to the back-breaking job in oil palm fresh fruit bunches (FFB) collection. With the assistance … Read more

Fertilizing young palm since its early stage is always necessary to establish vigorous healthy trees (Caliman et al., 2001). It is also often recognized that future performance of poorly fertilized palm during immaturity might be affected for its whole life cycle. Main Researcher: Salmah Jahis  Email: salmah@mpob.gov.my

Parasitoids and predators play a major role in regulating pest numbers, especially the bagworms and nettle caterpillars. A field study had revealed the importance of several species of parasitoids in regulating the bagworm numbers at low levels, which in effect is natural control (Basri et al., 1995). Main Researcher: Dr Norman Kamaruddin Email: norman@mpob.gov.my

Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) is a rod-shaped 1-1.2 microns, gram positive, facultative anaerobic, spore forming bacterium. During sporulation, it produces insecticidal crystal proteins (ICP) or δ-endotoxins or Cry proteins. The primary insecticidal activity of Bt is due to the ICP. The Cry proteins were grouped according to their specific toxicity towards certain insect orders. Main Researcher: … Read more