ARTIFICIAL POLLINATION: ¿NAA IN LIQUID SUSPENSION OR NAA IN SOLID MIXTURE?

Assisted pollination with E. guineensis pollen during the stage of anthesis is needed in Elaeis oleifera x Elaeis guineensis crops, otherwise natural pollination would not be sufficient to allow for proper fresh fruit bunch (FFB) formation. It is unlikely that without assisted pollination one may have a profitable oil palm operation (i.e. cultivos OxG). An alternative to assisted pollination is the artificial pollination, it was released by Cenipalma in 2018. Artificial pollination consists in applying nafthalen acetic acid (NAA) to female inflorescences in order to estimulate fruit formation. It can be performed during the stage of anthesis, 7 days after anthesis(dda) and 14 dda and, it has proven to yield better FFB conformation and to increasing palm oil content per FFB. Even though, Cenipalma released a method in which NAA was applied by means of a liquid suspension, growers tried with a solid mix (NAA+talc) arguing that the solid presentation is easier to handle at a field level.