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Acne vulgaris or common acne is a regular skin disorder that affects virtually all individuals at least once during their lifetime. The incidence of acne peaks at 18 years of age but quite a numbers of men and women aged 20-40 are also affected by the disorder (Cunliffe and Gould, 1979). Treatment of acne is important … Read more

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 … Read more

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 … Read more

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 … Read more

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 … Read more