Oil Palm Pruning and Relationships between Leaf Area and Yield - A Review of Previous Experiments

There is often uncertainty concerning the best pruning policy to adopt in order to maximise yields. The results of numerous pruning/defoliation experiments carried out on both healthy and diseased palms are reviewed. These show, in general, that for healthy palms at standard planting densities, maximum yields are achieved with the maximum number of fronds per palm and, therefore, care is needed to avoid over- pruning. When palms are diseased, removal of affected fronds does not always reduce yields and may aid plantation hygiene. Keywords: Pruning, bunch yield, leaf area, oil palm.