PALMOILMAGAZINE, JAKARTA – In 2023, palm oil plantations in Indonesia covered approximately 16.38 million hectares, according to data from the Ministry of Agriculture. This aligns with the growing global demand for vegetable oils and their derivatives. However, meeting this demand requires continuous annual production increases from palm oil stakeholders.
Various factors influence fresh fruit bunch (FFB) production, including land conditions, nutrition, climate, environment, pests, diseases, and pollination. Among these, palm oil tree pollination stands out as the primary factor for achieving higher production yields.
As Palmoilmagazine.comquoted from the official page of Sulung Research, palm oil tree has male and female flowers which are separated by fresh fruit bunch. The pollination is mostly crossing one to the other. The pollen from male flower falls down to the pistil head of female flower. But the challenges come up because the blossom time for male and female flowers would not always be the same. Female flower gets shorter blossom period.
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Many researches revealed that natural pollinator, such as, Elaeidobius kamerunicus (insect) does contribute to the pollination process but the weather, availability of male flower would also influence the effectiveness of natural pollination.
To escalate pollination, hand pollination would be the solution to apply. The process would involve man’s intervention in palm oil flower pollination. These would cover the monitoring to know if male flower is available, pollen harvest, mixing pollen with carrier media, and the application to female flower.
The research showed the significant increasing act at fruit set after applying hand pollination. The fruit set per bunch increased 40,6% in average, showed that hand pollination could be the effective solution to escalate palm oil production in the plantations were the male flower availability is limited.
By adopting the hand pollination, the stakeholders would optimize the increasing production and contribute to fulfill the demands globally on vegetable oil (palm oil) and its derivative products. (T2)
