Evaluation of wild oil palm germplasm for horticultural traits

Abstract

Wild oil palm germplasm introduced from Guinea Bissau (GB), Cameroon (CA), Tanzania (TS) and Zambia (ZS) sources were evaluated for fresh fruit bunch (FFB) yield, alternate bearing index (ABI) and important bunch components (BC) with an objective to select individual palms for utilization in hybrid seed production at ICAR, IIOPR, RC, Palode, India. The results of one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that palms belonging to TS and ZS showed good performance when compared to GB and CA and all exhibited significant differences for bunch weight, FFB yield and other important BC except bunch numbers (BN). The high co-efficient of variation of 67.22 % and 71.80 % were reported for FFB yield and nut weight (NW), respectively. Evaluation on the basis of individual palms revealed that two individual palms of TS (TS78 and TS85) and five palms of ZS (ZS71, ZS72, ZS77, ZS48, ZS 84) had desirable traits of low ABI coupled with high mean FFB yield (kg palm-1 year-1). Further screening, based on conjoined traits namely, ABI and oil to bunch (%) resulted in selection of three promising palms viz., TS85, ZS72 and ZS48 from TS and ZS, respectively for further improvement and utilization in hybrid seed production programme