Improving palm oil production for PNG

Palm Oil is the cash crop with the greatest economic importance to Papua New Guinea, directly supporting about 20,000 small-holder families and six large companies and bringing in increasing export earnings ($264 million in 2006).

Company plantations achieve yields of 20-35 tonnes of fresh fruit bunches per hectare annually. However smallholders, who control half of the area cultivated, on average achieve only about half of this yield. Improvement in smallholder productivity will have huge economic and social benefits through enhancing rural incomes and social advancement. Developing practical ways to improve smallholder production is a national research and development priority.

Fertiliser is the largest cost but also offers the highest potential return on investment in oil palm plantations and its use holds the key to this problem. In collaboration with scientists in the PNG Oil Palm Research Association, CSIRO and Massey University, and with support from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, the European Union and AusAID, agronomist Dr Paul Nelson investigated inefficiencies in the uptake of nitrogen, magnesium and potassium in fertilisers.

The research involved field trials at more than 25 plantation and smallholder blocks, glasshouse and laboratory experiments, and re-examination and packaging of regional soil survey data into a GIS format, to make this information widely accessible.

The research established methodologies, types and application rates to maximise the benefits of fertiliser use in relation to soil type. An immediate benefit was improved site-specific fertiliser recommendations for the main smallholder areas in West New Britain and Oro provinces. To come up with improved management practices, the agronomic research results were integrated with new cash management and payment strategies from research by others into socio-economic limitations to production.

Field days, radio programs and local planning committee and grower association meetings were used for telling growers about practical steps they could take. One outcome is that production data from West New Britain, which generates about half of the national crop, has shown a gain in palm oil crop yields of about 30 per cent. Training programs have been provided for over 300 smallholder advisers and plantation managers and the way fertiliser is applied is being modified throughout PNG.

Contact: Dr Paul Nelson

P: 07 4042 1375