Oil Palm Essay

The oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) is originated from the West African tropical rainforest and introduced into Bogor, Java as ornamental plants. There are about 2500 to 3000 fruits borne on 100 to 120 spikelets attached to a peduncle from the axil of a frond produced by female bunch. Two main products that are produced by the fruits are palm oil from the outer mesocarp and palm kernel oil from the kernel within the nut (Basiron and Chan, 2004). The mesocarp is made up of about 49% oil and about 50% kernel. The palm fruit is about the size of a small plum. The oil palm is declared as eco-friendly since it maintains its green canopy throughout its economic lifespan of 30 years and does not cause any environmental degradation such as soil erosion (Kalidas, 2012).

The oil palm is cultivated on tropical soils predominantly that belong mainly to the soil orders Ultisol, Oxisol and Inceptisol. On top of that, these soils are characterised as highly acidic and have low buffering capacities. Tenera hybrid is the oil palm that is currently being planted. This hybrid yields about 4 tonnes of palm oil per hectare, together with 0.5 tonnes of palm kernel oil and 0.6 tonnes of palm kernel cake. The economic life span of oil palm is about 25 years. The harvesting of the palm can be done beginning 30 months after field planting.

Malaysia is the world’s second largest oil palm producer after Indonesia. The oil palm needs huge amount of nutrients to maintain its growth and yield so that level of high production can be obtained due to the low soil fertility in nearly all Malaysian soils. High fertilizer rates are also important to avoid soil nutrient in balance and to make sure that adequate nutrients are available in the soil (Ng et al., 2011). Oil p...

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...and improve crops quality, improve soil structure and improve soil chemical properties. Although it has benefits to the crop production, there is also effect to the soil organisms underneath.

At the moment, the effect of agricultural practice on biodiversity is passionately discussed and arthropods are often used as bioindicators for estimating the consequence of landscape and management and soil quality (Paoletti, 1999). Soil invertebrates are obviously altering litter decomposition rates, soil aeration, nutrient mineralization, primary production and other ecosystem services linked to the soil ecosystem function and agroecological conservation (Six et al., 2002). Interruption of the soil structure has a major effect on the capability of soil to obtain and store water, cycle carbon and other nutrients, assist plant growth and soil dwelling organisms (Neese, 2004).