Fertilizer management practices are very important in oil palm cultivation for high yield production and to minimize negative impact on the environment. Nutrients applied as fertilizers are subjected to losses in the dissolved from via surface runoff, erosion, vocalization, leaching and fixation in the soil. For example, higher rates of fertilizer application per unit area […]

Biofertilizer is a substance which contains living microorganisms. When applied to seed, plant surfaces or the soil, the microorganisms in biofertilizer colonize the rhizosphere or the interior of the plant, and promote growth by increasing the supply or availability of the primary nutrients to the host plant. Most biofertilizer contain root nodule bacteria, mycorrhizal fungi and other microorganisms that facilitate nutrients […]

Historically, oil palm trunks (OPT) were burnt to make way for replanting. Burning of oil palm biomass reduces the risk of potentialpests and diseases. In 1994, open burning of crop residues in Malaysia was banned due  to environmental and health concerns. This led to the practice of the zero-burning technique. With extensive oil palm replanting, […]

The manipulation of microbials such as fungi, bacteria, mychorrhiza and axtinomycetes as biocontrol agents (BCAs) is being investigated to control Ganoderma, the causal agent of basal stem rot (BSR) disease of oil palm. The biologica; properties of several antigonistic fungi, namely, Trichoderma (Sariah and Zakaria, 2000; Izzati and Abdullah, 2008), Aspergillus (Shukla and Uniyal, 1989), […]

Basal stem rot (BSR) disease can cause considerable damage in oil palm by bisidiomycete fungi identified as Ganoderma spp. (Idris, 1999). Biological control in Ganoderma disease management has been extensively explored in recent years. Biological control is the use of natural or modified organisms, genes and gene products to reduce the effects of plant pathogens and […]