Why is it so hard to develop F1 hybrid varieties for oil palm?
The key reason why F1 oil palm hybrids did not exist before this is because oil palm breeders have not managed to produce plants with two identical sets of chromosomes, or homozygous parents, successfully until now. It took Sumatra Bioscience seven years to develop a process to produce the F1 oil palm hybrids. During the period, we tried out different methods, including inbreeding and anther culture but they were either not viable or unsuccessful. For example, the inbreeding or selfing method, which was used to produce highly homozygous parents (but not 100% homozygous) for corn, involves pollinating plants with their own pollens for 7 to 8 generations. However, the long generation time for oil palm had made the method not viable. We estimate it would require more than 40 years to obtain highly homozygous oil palm parents. We, and others, have also tried the anther culture method but to date, we have not managed to produce any haploids. We have developed a new process using a series of
Related Questions
- What is the anticipated yield from the F1 hybrid oil palm varieties? How did Sumatra Bioscience arrive at these numbers?
- Besides using the F1 hybridisation method, are any other ways one can use to produce F1 hybrid oil palm seeds?
- What is a F1 hybrid oil palm seed? How is this different from the conventional oil palm seed?
