Oil Content in Oil Palm Fruit Mesocarp and Bunch, and Some of its Related Physiological and Agronomical Factors

The main bunch components highly correlated to oil to bunch were in the order of the percentages of oil to mesocarp, moisture content in the mesocarp, fruit to bunch, oil in dry mesocarp and mesocarp thickness. Although the analysis does not include the relationship of free fatty acid (ffa) with oil synthesis, the assessment made on the number of detached fruits against oil to bunch on 401 bunches of palm ages ranging from 4 to 17 for a period of 12 months indicates that there is a quadratic increasing trend of curvilinear relationship in oil formation in the bunch and found that it takes about seven loose fruits per kg of bunch to maximise oil in a bunch. Large bunches (more than 20 kg) require more than 100 loose fruits per bunch to maximise oil. Nutrients N, P, K, Ca, Mg analysed in the mesocarp have negative correlation to oil formation or there was a decline in nutrient concentrations, when there is a reduction in mesocarp moisture content. Agronomically, the nutrient loss in mesocarp of ripe bunches was lower than that of the unripe bunches. None of the leaf nutrient concentrations has any direct relationship with oil formation in the mesocarp. The total leaf cations (TLC) show a linear relationship to mesocarp thickness. Extremely high/low Mg and Ca levels in oil palm leaves, measured as proportion of TLC, shows thin mesocarp and extremely high K expressed as proportion of TLC also shows thin mesocarp at the expense of large nut formation. Keywords: Oil palm, mesocarp oil, total leaf cation, mesocarp nutrients