KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 21 (Bernama) -- Palm oil could not afford to stagnatewithout increasing its yield and therefore efforts must be made tostrengthen management and research so that cutting edge technologies couldbe adopted as the best practices.

Prof Dr Jalani Sukaimi, senior research fellow of the Malaysian Palm OilBoard (MPOB), said yield potential has remained unrealised after 1989 dueto several reasons.

One of them were the increase percentage of old palm trees.

In his working paper "Review of the Stagnating Yield in Oil PalmPlantations and its Possible Remedies," Dr Jalani said the age profile ofthe trees had also changed where from 1975-2000 the youngest age group(1-3 years) has fallen to 15.4 percent, while the oldest (above 25 years)rose to 7.8 percent from 0.1 percent.

"The tendency to retain old palms is favoured by periodic bouts of highpalm oil prices, especially in 1997-1998," he said in presenting his paperat the 2001 International Palm Oil Congress (2001 PIPOC) here yesterday.

Dr Jalani said that several measures have been proposed to rectify thesituation, one of which is the agronomic factor where more replantingshould be carried out.

Another recommendation in the agronomic factor was to go for higher yieldrather than increasing the area as the latter would invariably encompassmarginal soils and bring down national yield.

In management policies, he said that in view of the labour shortage,management must be mediated through improvements in mechanisation,agronomy, pest control and the use of precision agriculture. -- BERNAMA