Pisang tanduk (Musa paradisiaca) is one of the popular banana varieties for cooking in Malaysia. It is widely cultivated by smallholders for production of banana chips, a popular snack among Malaysians. The ripened banana is usually deep fried and the under-ripe boiled for breakfast or evening tea. It is the largest variety of banana. Its length […]

Bactris (Bactris gasipaes) is also known as peach palm and has two genotypes; spineless and spiny. It is a monoecious and self-incompatible plant with male and female flowers develop on a rachilla. Bactris is a fast growing palm with large palm heart, stem diameter of 12 to 26 cm, and can grow up to 6 to […]

Harvesting of fresh fruit bunches (FFB) is a tedious and time-consuming process. It needs experience and skill for harvesting FFB. The harvesting process involves identifying the ripe bunch, removing subtending fronds, locating the stalk and finally cutting the bunch. This is carried out traditionally using a chisel attached to a short steel pole for short palms […]

Oil palm breeders routinely carry out bunch analysis to estimate oil and kernel content in bunches (Rao et al., 1983). Normally, three to five bunches are analysed per palm and breeding trials involve thousands of experimental palms generating voluminous data. At present, bunch analysis data is captured manually in a record sheet and later the data […]

The liquid culture system offers advantages in reproducibility, versatility and efficiency with high potential for scaling-up propagule production. A liquid culture consists of small cell groups and large cell aggregates dispersed in a liquid medium and actively growing under agitation and aeration (Narayanaswamy, 1994). Application of this technology would lead to development of automation for oil palm […]