Advanced Statistical Methods in Biometric Research.

The year 2020 faced unprecedented challenge for most of the global economic growth due to the outbreak of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Despite a downward trend performance of the Malaysian oil palm industry, particularly for the first half of 2020, the impact is less severe due to the encouraging palm oil export revenue through the National Economic Recovery Plan (PENJANA) which nurtures a notable increase in crude palm oil (CPO) price. In honouring the Malaysian pledge on forest conservation, land expansion for the oil palm cultivation remains stagnant over the years. The effort is now shifting towards enhancing the oil palm yield performance through new planting materials and good agricultural practices, coupled with systematic pest and disease management. Sustainability continues to be the key agenda of the oil palm industry, in moving forward to sustain the industry ecosystem. The industry is now open for innovative palm oil processes to comply with the dynamic and stringent food safety and quality standards and trade regulations. Owing to the distinction in food and feed applicability together with health prospects, translating the information into consumer-friendly language is becoming crucial for effective communication. Valorisation via the concept of 'waste to wealth' has compelled series of innovations in capitalising oil palm co-products for greener bioenergy and oleochemicals, and source of phytonutrients to generate higher earnings without having to heavily rely on palm oil trade as commodity. Mandatory enactment of the Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) certification scheme has portrayed a success story of showing the utmost commitment towards sustainability. With persistent dedication, the oil palm industry is envisaged to be self-sustaining, amidst the never-ending challenges surrounding economy, well-being and environment.

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Oil palm economic performance in malaysia and r&d progress in 2019

The genetic basis of selection.

Sesame is an important oilseed crop mainly grown in inclement areas with high temperatures and frequent drought. Thus, drought constitutes one of the major constraints of its production. The AP2/ERF is a large family of transcription factors known to play significant roles in various plant processes including biotic and abiotic stress responses. Despite their importance, little is known about sesame AP2/ERF genes. This constitutes a limitation for drought-tolerance candidate genes discovery and breeding for tolerance to water deficit. One hundred thirty-two AP2/ERF genes were identified in the sesame genome. Based on the number of domains, conserved motifs, genes structure and phylogenetic analysis including 5 relatives species, they were classified into 24 AP2, 41 DREB, 61 ERF, 4 RAV and 2 Soloist. The number of sesame AP2/ERF genes was relatively few compared to that of other relatives, probably due to gene loss in ERF and DREB subfamilies during evolutionary process. In general, the AP2/ERF genes were expressed differently in different tissues but exhibited the highest expression levels in the root. Mostly all DREB genes were responsive to drought stress. Regulation by drought is not specific to one DREB group but depends on the genes and the group A6 and A1 appeared to be more actively expressed to cope with drought. This study provides insights into the classification, evolution and basic functional analysis of AP2/ERF genes in sesame which revealed their putative involvement in multiple tissue-/developmental stages. Out of 20 genes which were significantly up- /down-regulated under drought stress, the gene AP2si16 may be considered as potential candidate gene for further functional validation as well for utilization in sesame improvement programs for drought stress tolerance.

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Insight into the AP2/ERF transcription factor superfamily in sesame and expression profiling of DREB subfamily under drought stress.

There is abundant literature focusing on the palm oil sector, which has grown into a vigorous sector with production originating mainly from Malaysia and Indonesia, and on increased palm oil consumption in many countries around the globe, particularly European Union states, China and India. This sector expansion has become quite controversial, because while it has negative social and environmental impacts, it also leads to positive benefits in generating fiscal earnings for producing countries and regular income streams for a large number of large- and small-scale growers involved in palm oil production. This document reviews how the social, ecological, and environmental dynamics and associated implications of the global palm oil sector have grown in complexity over time, and examines the policy and institutional factors affecting the sector's development at the global and national levels.This work examines the geographies of production, consumption and trade of palm oil and its derivatives, and describes the structure of the global palm oil value chain, with special emphasis on Malaysia and Indonesia. In addition, this work reviews the main socioenvironmental impacts and trade-offs associated with the palm oil sector's expansion, with a primary focus on Indonesia. The main interest is on the social impacts this has on local populations, smallholders and workers, as well as the environmental impacts on deforestation and their associated effects on carbon emissions and biodiversity loss. Finally, the growing complexity of the global oil palm value chain has also driven diverse types of developments in the complex oil palm policy regime governing the sector's expansion. This work assesses the main features of this emerging policy regime involving public and private actors, with emphasis on Indonesia.There are multiple efforts supporting the transition to a more sustainable palm oil production; yet the lack of a coordinated public policy, effective incentives and consistent enforcement is clear and obvious. The emergence of numerous privately driven initiatives with greater involvement of civil society organizations brings new opportunities for enhancing the sector's governance; yet the uptake of voluntary standards remains slow, and any push for the adoption of more stringent standards may only widen the gap between large corporations and medium- and smallscale growers. Greater harmonization between voluntary and mandatory standards, as well as among private initiatives is required. Commitments to deforestation-free supply chains have the potential to reduce undesired environmental impacts from oil palm expansion, and while this risks excluding smallholders from the supply chains, such commitments may function to leverage the upgrading of smallholder production systems. Their success, however, will require greater public and private sector collaboration.

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The palm oil global value chain: Implications for economic growth and socialand environmental sustainability

African oil palm has the highest productivity amongst cultivated oleaginous crops. Species can constitute a single crop capable to fulfill the growing global demand for vegetable oils, which is estimated to reach 240 million tons by 2050. Two types of vegetable oil are extracted from the palm fruit on commercial scale. The crude palm oil and kernel palm oil have different fatty acid profiles, which increases versatility of the crop in industrial applications. Plantations of the current varieties have economic life-span around 25-30 years and produce fruits around the year. Thus, predictable annual palm oil supply enables marketing plans and adjustments in line with the economic forecasts. Oil palm cultivation is one of the most profitable land uses in the humid tropics. Oil palm fruits are the richest plant source of pro-vitamin A and vitamin E. Hence, crop both alleviates poverty, and could provide a simple practical solution to eliminate global pro-vitamin A deficiency. Oil palm is a perennial, evergreen tree adapted to cultivation in biodiversity rich equatorial land areas. The growing demand for the palm oil threatens the future of the rain forests and has a large negative impact on biodiversity. Plant science faces three major challenges to make oil palm the key element of building the future sustainable world. The global average yield of 3.5 tons of oil per hectare (t) should be raised to the full yield potential estimated at 11-18t. The tree architecture must be changed to lower labor intensity and improve mechanization of the harvest. Oil composition should be tailored to the evolving needs of the food, oleochemical and fuel industries. The release of the oil palm reference genome sequence in 2013 was the key step toward this goal. The molecular bases of agronomically important traits can be and are beginning to be understood at the single base pair resolution, enabling gene-centered breeding and engineering of this remarkable crop.

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Oil palm natural diversity and the potential for yield improvement

RESUMO A hibridacao interespecifica entre o caiaue ( Elaeis oleifera (Kunth) Cortes) e o dendezeiro (E. guineensis Jacq.) tem sido explorada com o objetivo de desenvolver cultivares tao produtivas quanto as de dendezeiro, aliada a resistencia a pragas e doencas, principalmente o amarelecimento fatal, elevada taxa de acidos graxos insaturados e reducao de porte caracteristicas do caiaue. Por ser uma cultura perene com longo ciclo de producao, alem dos altos custos para manutencao e avaliacao dos experimentos de melhoramento genetico, e necessario definir o periodo minimo de avaliacao para que a selecao dos hibridos seja realizada com eficiencia e minimo dispendio de tempo e recursos. Este estudo teve como objetivo estimar os coeficientes de repetibilidade dos caracteres numero de cachos, peso total de cachos e peso medio de cachos de hibridos interespecificos e definir o numero de anos consecutivos de avaliacao necessario para selecao eficiente dos melhores cruzamentos e individuos. Os coeficientes de repetibilidade foram estimados pelos metodos da analise de variância, componentes principais com base na matriz de covariância (CPCV) e de correlacoes, e analise estrutural com base na matriz de correlacoes. O metodo dos CPCV demonstrou ser o mais adequado para o estudo da repetibilidade da producao de cachos, indicando quatro anos consecutivos de avaliacao para selecionar progenies, representadas por dez plantas, com coeficientes de determinacao (R 2 ) superiores a 85%, e que para selecao individual de plantas sao necessarios pelo menos seis anos consecutivos de avaliacao para atingir R 2 superior a 80%. PalavRaS-chavE: Elaeis guineensis, Elaeis oleifera, hibridacao, melhoramento genetico.

https://acta.inpa.gov.br/fasciculos/39-2/PDF/v39n2a01.pdf

Repetibilidade da produção de cachos de híbridos interespecíficos entre o caiaué e o dendezeiro

Evaluation of interspecific hybrids of palm oil reveals great genetic variability and potential selection gain

Neste documento sao apresentados os procedimentos recomendados para germinacao das sementes de caiaue, dendezeiro e hibridas interespecificas (caiaue x dendezeiro) a partir de sementes armazenadas.

Germinação de sementes de Elaeis spp.

O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar a producao de cachos e estimar os parâmetros geneticos de progenies F1 de caiaue (Elaeis oleifera) com dendezeiro (E. guineenses). As progenies foram plantadas em parcelas com numero variavel de plantas. Avaliaram-se numero (NC), peso medio (PMC) e peso total de cachos (PTC) por planta, do setimo ao decimo-terceiro ano apos o plantio. Estes dados foram analisados por REML/BLUP em 59 progenies, com delineamento desbalanceado em linha e coluna. Todos os caracteres apresentaram consideravel variabilidade, com coeficientes de variacao genetica entre 18,1 e 25,5%, quanto a progenie, e de 25,6 a 36,0% quanto a individuo. Pela selecao das cinco melhores progenies, podem ser obtidos ganhos superiores a 30%, para NC e PTC, e acima de 20% para PMC; e, com a selecao dos cinco melhores individuos, ganhos acima de 65%, para NC e PTC, e acima de 60% para PMC. As progenies apresentam alta variabilidade genetica quanto a producao de cachos. Ganhos geneticos elevados podem ser obtidos pela selecao tanto de individuos para clonagem quanto de progenies para reproducao sexuada.

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Raimundo Nonato Vieira da Cunha

Papers

Oil palm natural diversity and the potential for yield improvement

Repetibilidade da produção de cachos de híbridos interespecíficos entre o caiaué e o dendezeiro

Evaluation of interspecific hybrids of palm oil reveals great genetic variability and potential selection gain

Germinação de sementes de Elaeis spp.

Produção de cachos e parâmetros genéticos de híbridos de caiaué com dendezeiro