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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

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 … Read more

The importance of basal stem rot (BSR) infected stumps as foci of new infection is of considerable relevance to planting point sanitation. This was shown by results of a trial in which bait seedlings were planted at different levels of BSR points (Khairudin, 1990; Flood et al., 2000). Idris et al. (2004) reported that 87.5% of … Read more

Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt.) produces protein inclusions (parasporal inclusions) adjacent to the endospore during sporulation. The parasporal inclusions consist of one or more insecticidal proteins in the form of a crystal or crystal complex. These insecticidal proteins are commonly known as insecticidal crystal proteins (ICP) or delta (δ) endotoxin. The primary insecticidal activity of Bt. is due … Read more

Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt.), which harbours Cry 1 delta-endotoxins is effective for the control of several lepidopteran insect pests. It is lepidopteran specific, environmental friendly, does not affect man, bird, fish and therefore, an ideal alternative for chemical insecticide. New Bt. strains and formulations rapidly introduced in the 1990s had further increased the Bt market. In Europe … Read more

A cost-effective loose fruit collection system is still one of the main targets of oil palm industry. Various inventions have been introduced but the objective has not been met due to the various technical limitations and constraints. Therefore, collection of loose fruits by raking is still being practiced, with a high percentage of debris. The debris content … Read more

For many years in Malaysia, phosphate rock (PR) from Christmas Island (CIRP) has been used most exclusively as the P source for plantation crops including oil palm. This source was shown in oil palm trials to be as effective as soluble P fertilizer (Chan, 1982). The effects of direct application of phosphate rock on mature … Read more

Satellite remote sensing (RS) technology using optical and radar remote sensing techniques have been used successfully in various applications related to earth resource studies and environmental monitoring. Some advantages of these techniques are cost effectiveness, wide coverage, near real-time data acquisition and frequent revisit capability. RS has significant potential to aid oil palm monitoring and detection … Read more

Peat with an area totalling approximately 2.6 million hectares is considered a major problem soil in Malaysia (Mutalib et al., 1991). In Sarawak alone, peat area covers approximately 1.6 million hectares or 13% of the total land area in the state (Teng, 2003). The poor inherent physical and chemical properties of peat make its development for … Read more