Updated on 11 April 2012 Sunday 11:25PM
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The Oil Palm Industries |
The Oil Palm Plantations |
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Palm |
The
Oil |
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Field
Maintenance
Unless fertilizers are apply to the oil palms when they are still young, the
plant will not grow well and takes longer time to harvest.
The trees must be protected from damage by rats and agoutis.
All this work takes a lot of time, and this means that you may not have enough
time to look after large fields of food crops.
You may have to buy food for your family.
Before you start an oil palm plantation, you must calculate carefully whether
you will be able to pay all these expenses.
Field Maintenance operations include weeding, water management, pruning, pest
and
disease management and manuring. Integrated pest management involving a mix of
cultural,
physical, chemical and biological control approaches to minimise crop losses to
pests is
commonly adopted in plantations. Examples of biological control measures applied
include
the use of baculovirus and Metarhizium anisopliae to control the rhinoceros
beetle (Oryctes
rhinoceros), control of leaf-eating bagworms and nettle caterpillars by their
natural predators
and parasitoids and the use of barn owls (Tyto alba) as the
biological agent
to control rats. (Golden Hope Plantations Berhad, 1997). As the cost of
fertilisers is the major
component of field upkeep expenditure, plantation companies generally undertake
soil and
foliar analyses of individual fields regularly to assess their nutritional
status and determine
the appropriate types and quantities of fertilisers required for optimal palm
development and
production.
