Palm Fruit/palm nut
Elaeis guineensis is a specie of palm commonly called African oil palm macaw fat.It is the principal source of palm oil.It is native to west and southern Africa, specifically the area between Angola and Gambia, the species name guinensis refers to the name of the area, Guinea and not the modern country which now bears that name. The species is also now naturalised in Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Sumatra, Central America, the west Indies and several islands in the India and pacific Oceans. The closely related American oil palm Elaeis Oleifera and a more distantly related palm, Attalea Maripa, are also used to produce palm oil.
Kingdom - Plantae
Family - Arecaceae
Subfamily - Arecoideae
Tribe - Cocoeae
Genus - Elaeis
Species - E.guineensis
Binomial name:Elaeis guineensis
Human use of oil palm date as far back as 5000 years in west Africa, in the late 1800s, archaeologists discovered palm oil in a tomb at Abydos dating back to 3,000 BCE. It is thought that Arab traders brought the oil Pam to Egypt.
The first western person to describe it and bring back seeds was the French naturalist Michel Adamson.
Description
Mature palms are single-stemmed and grow to will tall. The leaves are pinnate and reach between 3-5m long. A young palm produces about 30 leaves a year. Established palm over 10 years produce about 20 leaves a year. The flowers are produced in dense clusters, each individual flower is small, with three sepals and three petals. The palm fruit takes five to six months to mature from pollination to maturity. It is reddish, about the size of a large plum, and grows in large bunches. Each fruit is made of an oily, fleshy outer layer (the pericarp) with a single seed (the palm kernel), also rich in oil. When ripe, each bunch of fruit weighs between 5-30kg (11-66lb) depending on the age of the palm tree.
Planting
For each hectare of oil palm which is harvested year-round, the annual production averages 20 tonnes of fruit yielding 4000kg of palm oil and 750kg of seed kernels yielding 500kg of high quality palm kernel oil, as well as 600kg of kernel meal. Kernel meal are processed for use as livestock feed.
All modern, commercial planting material consists of tenera palms or D×P hybrids which are obtained by crossing thick shelled dura with shell-less pisifera. Although common commercial germinated seed is as thick-shelled as the dura mother palm, the resulting palm will produce thin shelled tenera fruit. An alternative to germinated seed, once constraints to mass production are overcome are tissue-cultured or "colonial" palms which provide "true copies" of high yielding D×P palm.
Kingdom - Plantae
Family - Arecaceae
Subfamily - Arecoideae
Tribe - Cocoeae
Genus - Elaeis
Species - E.guineensis
Binomial name:Elaeis guineensis
Human use of oil palm date as far back as 5000 years in west Africa, in the late 1800s, archaeologists discovered palm oil in a tomb at Abydos dating back to 3,000 BCE. It is thought that Arab traders brought the oil Pam to Egypt.
The first western person to describe it and bring back seeds was the French naturalist Michel Adamson.
Description
Mature palms are single-stemmed and grow to will tall. The leaves are pinnate and reach between 3-5m long. A young palm produces about 30 leaves a year. Established palm over 10 years produce about 20 leaves a year. The flowers are produced in dense clusters, each individual flower is small, with three sepals and three petals. The palm fruit takes five to six months to mature from pollination to maturity. It is reddish, about the size of a large plum, and grows in large bunches. Each fruit is made of an oily, fleshy outer layer (the pericarp) with a single seed (the palm kernel), also rich in oil. When ripe, each bunch of fruit weighs between 5-30kg (11-66lb) depending on the age of the palm tree.
Planting
For each hectare of oil palm which is harvested year-round, the annual production averages 20 tonnes of fruit yielding 4000kg of palm oil and 750kg of seed kernels yielding 500kg of high quality palm kernel oil, as well as 600kg of kernel meal. Kernel meal are processed for use as livestock feed.
All modern, commercial planting material consists of tenera palms or D×P hybrids which are obtained by crossing thick shelled dura with shell-less pisifera. Although common commercial germinated seed is as thick-shelled as the dura mother palm, the resulting palm will produce thin shelled tenera fruit. An alternative to germinated seed, once constraints to mass production are overcome are tissue-cultured or "colonial" palms which provide "true copies" of high yielding D×P palm.
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