OER Boosters

Key points from Feature Article by Mr. N. Ravi Menon of Malaysian Palm Oil Board ;

• the period from anthesis to harvesting in Malaysia ranges from 140 to 160 days (Hartley, 1977) but oil accumulation is usually confined about 35 days before harvest
• the number of fruits in a bunch is proportional to the number of female flowers and the pollination efficiency
• there is no evidence to show that the oil to bunch follows any specific trend (Corley and Gray, 1976) but pollination efficiency can have seasonal variation due to the impact of heavy rain that could discourage weevils from active pollination
• water deficit can shorten the period of bunch maturation resulting in reduced oil to bunch due to lower oil in mesocarp (Ochs and Daniel, 1976)
• every 1% loose fruit not collected contributes 0.3% OER depression
• trash can sometimes be as high as 10%. but let us take a small figure of only 5% then the OER depression could be 1% based on 600t FFB processed with an OER of 20%
• the bunch weight can escalate by 10% on a rainy day

Source  - Palm Oil Engineering Bulletin (No.100) / MPOB