(MPOB Transfer of Technology)
Through its R&D activities, MPOB now has a technology to produce an active ingredient (technically known as anionic surfactant) from palm oil and the active ingredient can be used to formulate cleaning products, such as liquid and powder detergents. The active ingredient is called methyl ester sulphonates or in short MES. Main Researcher: Dr Salmiah … Read more
Genetic engineering provides the opportunity to diversify the use and to increase the economic value of palm oil. Production of speciality oils for industrial applications will be a very attractive proposition for the oil palm, since it is the most productive oil crop. Main Researcher: Dr Siti Nor Akmar Abdullah
Lipase is the first enzyme involved in the degradation of stored lipids. The increase in free fatty acid (FFA) levels in palm oil is attributed to the action of lipase. However, evidence as to the nature of the lipase has been contradictory. Oo (1981) and Tombs and Stubbs (1982) reported the absence of endogenous lipase … Read more
The Genome Analysis Laboratory for Oil Palm (GALOP) is a service and core facility which supports the research activities of MPOBís Advanced Biotechnology and Breeding Centre (ABBC). GALOP also extends DNA testing services to the oil palm industry for applications in tissue culture and breeding. Services currently being offered by GALOP include: i. DNA fingerprinting; … Read more
The Flameless Sterilizer** is an electrical device designed for heat sterilization of tissue culture (TC) glass containers (for mouth-rim region) and surgical apparatus. It is a replacement for the flaming process that is commonly conducted using a Bunsen burner or alcohol lamp. The sterilizer has a circular heating coil in the centre where the TC … Read more
As an alternative to culture on solid medium, the use of liquid culture for oil palm propagation has been attempted in order to explore its potential for automation and scaling-up propagule production as well as for improving growth and culture uniformity (de Touchet et al., 1991; Teixeira et al., 1995; Wong et al.,1999). However, a … Read more
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