|
Arabic
Bengali
Chinese
English
French
German
Hebrew
Hindi
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Malay
Polish
Portuguese
Spanish
Turkish
Ukrainian
Vietnamese|
CULTURAL AND WILD PLANTS
Oil palm. Legends, myths, symbolism, description, cultivation, methods of application
Directory / Cultivated and wild plants Content
Oil palm, Elaeis guineensis. Photos of the plant, basic scientific information, legends, myths, symbolism
Basic scientific information, legends, myths, symbolism Sort by: Elaeis Family: Arecaceae (Arecaceae) Origin: The homeland of the oil palm is West Africa (Ghana, Sierra Leone). It was extended to East Africa and Madagascar. It is currently cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Area: Africa, Asia, South America. Chemical composition: Oil palm contains many fats and vitamins, as well as carotenoids, phytosterols and other beneficial substances. Palm kernel oil consists mainly of saturated fatty acids and triglycerides, which are used in the food, cosmetic and industrial sectors. Economic value: The oil palm is an important source of edible oil for humans. The plant is used in the manufacture of soaps, cosmetics and other industrial products. The oil palm is also a major source of income for many countries that grow it commercially. However, oil palm cultivation can lead to deforestation and biodiversity loss, which is one of the problems of modern agriculture. Legends, myths, symbolism: In ancient Greek mythology, the oil palm was associated with the goddess Aphrodite, symbolizing love, beauty, and fertility. In the religion of Christians, the oil palm tree is associated with the feast of the Lord's Entry into Jerusalem, when a crowd of people, cutting off the branches of the oil palm tree, accompanied Jesus to His last week of life. Symbolically, the oil palm is associated with vitality, longevity, prosperity and protection. It can also be used as a symbol of wisdom, prosperity and abundance. In some cultures, oil palm is used in rituals to ward off evil spirits and negative energy.
Oil palm, Elaeis guineensis. Description, illustrations of the plant Oil palm, Elaeis guineensis. Methods of application, origin of the plant, range, botanical description, cultivation
The oil palm belongs to the species Elaeis guineensis Jacq. (in Greek - Guinean olive) of the Palm family (Palmaceae). In addition to Elaeis guineensis (real, or African, oil palm), there are other species close to it: Elaeis madagascariensis, endemic to about. Madagascar, as well as corozo, or American oil palm (Corozo olleifera Bailey). The oil palm gives 2 types of oils: from the seeds - palm nut oil, from the pericarp - palm oil. Leading producing countries: Malaysia (5,0 million tons), Indonesia (1,8 million tons), Nigeria (750 thousand tons), Côte d'Ivoire, China, Zaire, New Guinea, Colombia, Thailand, Ecuador. In addition, about 1 million tons of "nuts" enter the international market every year, which is equivalent to about 286 thousand tons of butter. In Africa, wild and cultivated oil palms are a major source of fat, especially in areas where the spread of the tsetse fly and the sleeping sickness it transmits has hampered livestock production. The oil palm is also used for the production of alcoholic beverages. The technique of obtaining and fermenting is similar to that of the coconut palm. One oil palm plant produces about 4 liters of juice per day from cuts in the inflorescences. Up to 240 liters of juice are obtained per season. The fermented juice turns into palm wine. There is no doubt that in the future the importance of the oil palm in the global fat balance will increase. It has no equal in potential productivity per unit area among other oilseeds, including such as sunflower, rapeseed and others, and along with this requires less labor. Origin distribution. The origin of the oil palm is not in doubt - wild palms are still widely distributed in the equatorial zone of West Africa, where they are a characteristic element of secondary forests and the edges of the tropical rainforest. Oil palm with equal right can be considered a very ancient, and at the same time a young culture. It has been used in West Africa for a very long time. A jug with traces of palm oil was discovered during archaeological excavations of burial grounds in Abydos dating back to the 3rd millennium BC. e. The industrial culture of oil palm only began in the 1911th century, when Western European soap and margarine companies became interested in it. In 1919, Dutch companies began large-scale oil palm cultivation in Indonesia, mainly in Sumatra. In XNUMX, the British established the first plantations in Malaysia. At the same time, British, French and Belgian firms have sharply increased their purchases of oil from local producers in African countries. All this led to a rapid expansion of the area under the oil palm. Now it is one of the leading oilseeds in the world. The oil palm is adapted to the hot and humid equatorial climate. The leading areas of its culture are located between 10 ° latitude in both hemispheres, although individual areas are located up to 13-15 ° North and South latitude. This is due to its high demands on the thermal regime: the optimal average annual temperature is 24-28 °C with a minimum of 19 °C. Therefore, oil palm plantations rarely rise above 700-800 m above sea level. sea even in the equatorial belt, although in Cameroon it is found up to a height of 1750 m. This is a typical culture of the tropical plains, especially river valleys and sea coasts. Oil palm in the wild reaches a height of 20-30 m, but rarely exceeds 10-15 m in cultivation. An adult plant usually has 20-40 leaves, and annually forms up to 20-25 new ones to replace the same number of dead ones. There is a bowl at the base of the oil palm trunk, where active meristematic activity has been maintained for decades. The trunk appears only in the 4-6th year of life, and under the forest canopy even after 15-20 years. The progressive growth of the stem depends on the age of the plants and growing conditions. In young people, it reaches 1 m per year, but in adults it rarely exceeds 50 cm, decreasing in unfavorable conditions to 20-25 cm. Inflorescences are formed in the axils of the leaves. As a rule, male and female inflorescences are formed successively on one plant. On separate inflorescences there are sometimes both male and female flowers. Such mixed inflorescences are quite often formed in young palms and very rarely in adults. Sometimes there are dioecious plants that produce flowers of only one sex. Observations have shown that in the rainy season with low insolation, predominantly male inflorescences are formed. On the contrary, the appearance of female inflorescences is promoted by intense lighting. Developed male inflorescences have up to 150-200 thousand axes, on which up to 100-150 thousand flowers are placed. The alternation of male and female inflorescences on the same plant excludes self-pollination, if bisexual inflorescences are not taken into account. Therefore, the oil palm is typically a cross-pollinating species. Pollen is produced in huge quantities: one strong male inflorescence forms up to 1 billion pollen grains and is able to pollinate a large number of female inflorescences. Pollen is mainly carried by the wind, although the importance of insect pollinators in this cannot be completely denied. The fruit of the oil palm is a simple drupe 3-5 cm long and weighing from 3 to 30 g, most often 6-8 g. On female inflorescences, usually from 800 to 1200, even up to 2000 fruits ripen. The total mass of the brush is usually 10-30 kg, but sometimes reaches 70 kg. The fruits account for 60-65% of the mass of the brush. We can assume that on average a palm tree produces 3-6 brushes annually. In bad conditions, there may be one brush, but the best palms have up to 10 of them. The oil palm has a powerful root system, consisting of roots of several orders. On numerous skeletal roots, a large number of lateral roots of various sizes are formed. Numerous adventitious roots extend from the base of the trunk in adult plants, and in some palms they densely cover the trunk up to a height of 1 m. The root system mostly lies superficially, and only in some cases the roots penetrate deep into the soil. The oil palm rarely suffers from excess moisture, except in cases of prolonged stagnant water. The optimal annual precipitation in oil palm growing areas is from 1500 to 3000 mm. Of the other environmental factors, the duration and intensity of sunlight are most important. The requirements of the oil palm in this regard are extremely high, even in comparison with such a light-loving crop as the coconut palm. It is no coincidence that the oil palm does not grow in the primary rainforest, where the light is very low. Even with slight shading, the entry of palms into fruiting is delayed and their yield drops. The relative humidity of the air, along with the wind, affects the pollination of flowers and, in addition, affects the development of fungal diseases. Fortunately, oil palm does not yet have particularly dangerous diseases that threaten its cultivation, like Panama disease in bananas or tristeza in citrus fruits.
The oil palm is relatively undemanding to soils provided they have good drainage. In any case, it grows on almost all types of soils in the tropical zone. In the wild and in culture, there are many forms of oil palm, which differ in biological and economic characteristics: yield, the ratio of male and female inflorescences, plant height, fruit size, structure, color, etc. However, the intraspecific taxonomy of the oil palm is based only on ratio of pericarp to endocarp. There are 3 main types of oil palm: Dura, Tenera and Pizifera. Palm trees of the first type - Dura (in Southeast Asia they are called Congo) give fruits with very thick (up to 4-8 mm) shells of stones. The pericarp is thin, it makes up only 30-45% of the mass of the fetus, and the nucleus - 10-15%. It is to this type that the vast majority of wild and semi-cultivated palms in West Africa belong. Tenera (known as Lisombe in Asia) has a thin (1-2 mm) shell and a developed pericarp (60-80% of the fruit weight). In this regard, it gives a much greater yield of oil and is now intensively multiplying. Pizifera is distinguished by the absence of endocarp in the fruits, and often seeds. The fruits are small (up to 5 g), and the pericarp accounts for up to 99% of their weight. Due to the small mass of brushes (often 3-4 kg) and low yield, it is not of interest for commercial cultivation. It is interesting that the oil content in the pericarp of all types is almost the same - about 45-53%, and the kernels account for 8-15% of the fruit mass. Therefore, differences in yield are determined by other indicators: the number of female and male inflorescences, the mass of racemes, the number and size of fruits per raceme, the ratio of pericarp and shell. The introduction of the best forms into production is facilitated by the high multiplication factor of the oil palm - one inflorescence after artificial pollination ensures the production of several hundred seedlings, i.e., in fact, several hectares of new plantings. This oil palm compares favorably with coconut. So far, the introduction of highly productive varieties of Tenera instead of low-value local forms of Dura remains the general direction of breeding in all countries. The oil palm reproduces only by seed. Simple and cost-effective methods have been developed in various countries to stimulate seed germination. All of them are based on the fact that their germination and germination energy increase significantly with increasing temperature (up to 37-40 °C). Seeds, as they germinate, are sown on well-fertilized seedbeds. To avoid curvature of the stems, they are laid horizontally. Feeding areas are set within 50-150 cm2 per plant. The choice of landing patterns depends on the specific conditions of each area. It is desirable that adult palm trees almost completely cover the soil, protecting it from sunlight, and at the same time do not interfere with each other. The scheme of 9x9 m can be considered optimal, with fluctuations from 7,5x7,5 on poor soils to 10,5x10,5 m on fertile soils (90-180 palm trees per 1 ha). But in the peasant farms of West Africa, in most cases, the palm tree is planted excessively densely. Surveys in Nigeria have shown that up to 300-350 or more palm trees often grow here per hectare. In Africa, mixed plantings of oil palm with other fruit and field crops are often found, and they are usually placed without a specific system. In small farms, the use of row spacing for the cultivation of food crops (cassava, corn, banana, etc.) is forced, although the yield of both oil palm and these crops is reduced. Better to do what is usually done in the eastern part of Nigeria: pass 2 rows of oil palm to grow food crops here. Their productivity here is higher than under the canopy of palms in ordinary aisles. Care for seedlings and young plants must be very thorough. In many areas, partial shading of the ridges is desirable, especially with strong insolation. Transplantation of seedlings from seed beds to the nursery is usually carried out in the phase of 2-3 leaves. Feeding areas in the nursery range from 50 x 50 to 90 x 90 cm. On average, 1 ha of the nursery provides 10-20 thousand standard seedlings, which is enough to lay 60-130 ha of plantations. In West Africa, the seeds usually begin to germinate in September and after 3 months they are sown on ridges, where the seedlings also stay for about 3 months. After that, they are grown in the nursery for about a year before the start of the rainy season. This is the best time to land. In Nigeria, for example, plantings in May are much better than in June-August, when the soil is waterlogged and the intensity of insolation is very low. Agricultural technology on large commercial plantations is fundamentally different from the agricultural technology of small peasant gardens and, moreover, semi-cultivated plantations. One can rightfully single out two areas of oil palm cultivation: extensive, which still prevails in Africa, and intensive, adopted mainly in Southeast Asia, Central and South America. The central place in the agricultural technology of the oil palm belongs to the fertilizer system. With a harvest of brushes of 15 t/ha, according to various authors, 90-130 kg of nitrogen, 25-70 kg of P205O120, 140-2 kg of KXNUMXO are taken out annually. Unlike other tropical crops, oil palm most often suffers from a lack of potassium. This is due both to its increased demand for this element and to the low content of mobile potassium in the prevailing types of soils on which it is cultivated. In addition, nitrogen reserves in the soil are partially replenished by cover legumes. Potassium starvation is especially strong on light sandy and gravelly soils, from where potassium is washed out in the rainy season. On oil palm plantations, symptoms of magnesium deficiency are also very common, and sometimes it becomes the main factor limiting growth and fruiting. The effectiveness of nitrogen fertilizers was also quite high in most of the experiments, especially on older plantations. In young palms, fertilizers are applied to near-stem circles, but in fruit-bearing gardens it is better to distribute them over the entire area, since the root systems of palms will cover all aisles by this time. Preference is given to fractional fertilization - up to 4 times a year. Recently, cases of microelement deficiencies, primarily boron and zinc, have been described in the oil palm in many areas. To eliminate it, they resort to spraying plants with appropriate preparations.
Oil palm yields vary greatly depending on the genetic characteristics of plants, natural conditions and the level of agricultural technology. In the wild, the oil palm in Africa often begins to bear fruit only after 10, and sometimes even after 20 years. On plantations, as a rule, it begins to bear fruit in the 3-4th year after planting. Palm trees usually reach their maximum yield at the age of 15-18 years, but in unfavorable conditions much later. In subsequent years, yields are relatively stable until palm aging begins. The productive life of plantations most often lasts 50-70 years, depending on the growing conditions and the level of agricultural technology. On modern plantations, yields are much higher than in peasant farms, and fruiting begins much earlier. So, on the plantations of La Me (Côte d'Ivoire) on forest soils, the harvest already reached 3 tons in the 13rd year, and in Dabou in the 4th year - 12 tons of brushes. In Benin, with abundant fertilization, the harvest of brushes was 163 kg per palm, which corresponds to 22 t/ha. As mentioned above, the frequency of flowering and, in connection with this, the ripening of fruits, are determined by the climate. In areas where the dry season is not pronounced, the fruits ripen almost evenly throughout the year. Where there is one or two dry seasons, the ripening of the crop is uneven over the months. In Benin, for example, the maximum falls on February - May. In other parts of West Africa, there are two peaks: in November-December and March-June. Modern technology was previously used only on plantations, but now it is increasingly being used in peasant farms (often on a cooperative basis). It includes a series of sequential operations: sterilization of brushes, separation of fruits from the brush on special machines, separation of pulp from "nuts" (by various methods, for example, in boilers with rotating knives at 95-100 ° C), extraction of oil from the pulp by pressing (up to 100 kg/cm2) or centrifugation. The use of centrifuges speeds up the extraction and increases the oil yield. Therefore, while the most widespread are presses of various designs. The resulting crude oil contains pulp particles, sand and up to 20-40% water, so it is settled and purified. Both types of oil differ significantly from each other both in biochemical composition and in taste. The pulp of the pericarp contains 22-70% fatty oil ("palm oil") obtained by pressing or digestion. It is orange-yellow in color due to the high content of carotenoids, solidifies at room temperature, melts at 27-45 °C. This oil is inedible and is used as a technical oil (lubricant, for the production of soap and candles). The kernels contain about 30% "palm nut oil". It is almost colorless, has a characteristic nutty taste like coconut and is one of the best vegetable oils, used mainly for the preparation of margarine and other edible fats; in medicine it is used in ointment and suppository bases. Authors: Baranov V.D., Ustimenko G.V.
Oil palm. Interesting plant facts
Let's get to know the oil palm. She, compared with most of her relatives, is low. Maybe that's why its huge feathery leaves seem even bigger. However, they are really not small - with a meter width they reach three, and sometimes even seven meters in length. In the classroom, such a sheet will take up space from wall to wall! The main value of this palm is in its fruits. They hang in large orange clusters in a dense crown. These fruits are similar in size and shape to plums. They have a bone inside. The nucleolus is hidden under its hard shell. This is a seed. When the stone falls into the soil, the seed core sprouts into a new palm tree. Outside, the bone, like that of a plum, is surrounded by juicy pulp. And this pulp is two-thirds of its weight, and the kernel is half oil: yellowish palm oil. It is highly valued, as it goes to the preparation of soap, candles, for lubricating mechanisms, but mainly for food. That is why thousands of barrels of palm oil are transported on large ships to Europe for margarine factories. Oil palm grows on the outskirts of evergreen tropical forests, along river banks. In the delta of the great African Niger River, it has spread so much that this area has even been called the Olive Coast. Three hundred years ago, the oil palm was brought to South and Central America, and since the beginning of our century, it has been bred throughout the entire tropical zone of the Earth on special plantations. Indeed, each tree, requiring almost no care, gives more fat during the year than two good sheep! But why does a palm tree need to have so much oil in its fruit? She doesn't eat them! Scientists have not yet given a definite answer to this question. But they make interesting suggestions. So, some believe that palm fruit oil is needed for the same purpose for which we, people, need a skullcap in the summer. If its bone with the seed kernel had not been covered with a layer of pulp saturated with oil, the palm embryo could have died from overheating, from "sunstroke" ... However, it's time for us! Other letters are already waving us, waiting for other stops. Let's linger just for a minute to drink refreshing palm juice as parting. It is collected by making cuts on the top of the tree and tying special bottles under them to the trunk. After the juice has fermented, a hoppy palm wine is obtained. But you and I will just drink juice - and go! Author: Margolin Ya.A.
Oil palm, Elaeis guineensis. Recipes for use in traditional medicine and cosmetology
Ethnoscience:
Cosmetology:
Attention! Before use, consult with a specialist!
Oil palm, Elaeis guineensis. Tips for growing, harvesting and storing
The oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) is an important agricultural plant that is used to produce palm oil. Tips for growing, harvesting and storing oil palm: Cultivation:
Workpiece:
Storage:
The oil palm is an important agricultural plant, producing a significant portion of palm oil, which is used in the food, cosmetics and industrial sectors.
▪ Belladonna vulgaris (Belladonna vulgaris) ▪ Muretia odorous (galaganiya odorous, fragrant muretia) ▪ Play the game "Guess the plant from the picture"
Energy from space for Starship
08.05.2024 New method for creating powerful batteries
08.05.2024 Alcohol content of warm beer
07.05.2024
▪ Light-eating cyborg bacteria ▪ A new family of highly integrated real-time clocks
▪ section of the site Civil radio communications. Article selection ▪ article Orientation in time. Fundamentals of safe life ▪ article Kotovnik Kopetdag. Legends, cultivation, methods of application
Home page | Library | Articles | Website map | Site Reviews
www.diagram.com.ua |
We recommend interesting articles Section 
See other articles Section 
Latest news of science and technology, new electronics:
All languages of this page