March 2010

Editorial

ASD in a Nutshell is celebrating its first birthday. Last year saw four issues of this newsletter which aim is to inform our clients and friends on some of our progress as a company that generates technology and creates new and innovative seed varieties and oil palm clones. The actual economic world crisis has had a negative impact on the initiation of some new oil palm projects and the expansion of others. Nevertheless, the previous year was still good for ASD business which we take as an indication of the confidence placed on our products. Our crystal ball also foresees a good panorama for the years to come for both ASD and our clients.

During this year we hope to continue informing about our activities, research results and the people that work for the ASD’s family. We believe that our activity is a noble one, since oil palm projects, when visualized as a sustainable activity, can have a tremendous positive social and economic impact on many marginal groups in the tropics of the world. The oil palm will be in the future a key crop for satisfying the demand of oil of a ever increasing world population. We believe it is our duty to work on the development of new varieties and technologies aimed to reducing any negative impact on the environment that all agricultural activity generates. .

Selection of palms with high iodine content

During the year 2005 ASD started a program to selecting palms with oil with a high insaturation value (high iodine index). The iodine index is a scale used to denominate the degree of insaturation of an organic compound containing double or triple bonds. It is assumed that oil with a higher degree of insaturation is more health friendly. The final goal of this program is to develop seed varieties and clones that will produce bunches with a high quality oil.

Commercial oil palm varieties (E. guineensis) are characterized for their high content of palmitic (44%), oleic (40%) and linoleic (10%) acids, and an iodine index between 51 and 55. The American oil palm, E. oleifera has higher oleic acid content, and its iodine index varies between 70 and 93. The intespecific hybrids (OxG) are intermediate in this characteristic with values between 58 and 71, and this is considered an important advantage of these planting materials (less saturated oil).

A preliminary screening of conventional ASD varieties (E. guineensis) showed a variation in iodine index between 50 y 55; which is considered normal for most commercial varieties available in the market. Deli x Ghana had an iodine value of 50, which is slightly inferior than the average of 54 found for other ASD varieties. For some ortets (outstanding palms used for cloning), the average value was 55, but a particular group had values above 58.

Within the group of compact palms used as mothers in ASD breeding program, some had iodine index values higher than 60. Those palms with this trait and also having high oil to bunch contents have been selected to give rise to a new generation of compact parents. The basic idea is to carry out crosses of compact parents with a high iodine index (>60) with guineensis pisiferas (index = 53-54) to get descendants hybrids with values between 56 and 58. ASD is also working to get DxP crosses, where both parents are compact, which would generate iodine values between 60 and 62.

A general scheme is as follows:

• Evaluation of the descendants of DxD, TxT and DxT from superior palms planted in 2008
• Doing the complementary crosses using other compact palms from the same origin to increase in the mid term the population of available progenitors
• Selection (and cloning) of dura and pisifera palms with high iodine values (some pisifera can be evaluated directly, since fertile pisifera palms are common within the compact population
• Using the compact dura and pisifera palms to produce conventional varieties (Compact x E. guineensis and Deli x compact).

A breaf history of ASD’s oil palm breeding program

ASD’s scientists routinely participate in international events where the latest developments of the oil palm agro industry are discussed. These meetings serve as an opportunity for discussion and sharing of new information from the different oil palm research programs. Last September, CENIPALMA held its international meeting in Cartagena, and our colleague Amancio Alvarado, head of ASD’s breeding program was invited as a main speaker to talk about ‘New developments on oil palm breeding in Central America’. We want to share a summary of his presentation describing the origins and achievements of ASD’s program, considered the most ample and successful in tropical America:

The genetic improvement of the oil palm in tropical America is closely linked to the history and activities of the United Fruit Company, which introduced this species in several countries in Central and South America in the thirties. The encouraging results from the first commercial plantations in Central America motivated continuous efforts to interchange germplasm with prestigious breeding programs in Southeast Asia and Africa. Several dura and tenera/pisifera populations were introduced to Costa Rica starting in 1970. Later, a sample of dura populations, AVROS and Ekona pollen were taken to Honduras. This germplasm now forms the base of the breeding and seed production programs in Central America.

ASD’s oil palm breeding program has been focused on three main areas:

1. Developing of E. guineensis varieties
2. Selection of oleifera palms to produce interspecific (OxG) hybrids
3. The development of composite planting materials by mixing E. guineensis and E. oleifera genes, better known as compact varieties.

This work, initiated four decades ago, has permitted to develop more than ten commercial seed varieties, now occupying about 1.2 million hectares planted in more than 30 countries in America, Asia and Africa

One of ASD’s main achievements has been the commercial consolidation of high density planting materials, the compact clones and seed varieties, which offer a unique opportunity to increase oil productivity per hectare. Other important achievement has been the development of stress tolerant seed varieties, such as cold, water deficit and spear rot tolerant materials that allow to push a little even more the agroecological frontier of the crop.

Development of virescens varieties from Nigeria origin

The change in color of the fruits of the oil palm is an important criterion to estimate bunch ripeness, since those changes are related to an increase in the concentration of oil in the mesocarp. This criterion is not totally reliable though, since the black color of the fruit of most varieties (nigrescens) may change little when the fruit is ripe. To cope with this, the other harvesting criterion normally used is the presence of fruits on the ground (loose fruits). Despite this, errors are common when judging bunch ripeness and a proportion of them may be cut unripe or overripe affecting oil content or quality.

One alternative to improve harvesting quality is by developing virescens varieties, which fruits change from a shiny green when unripe to a bright orange when they have accumulated the maximum amount of oil and are ready for harvesting. The virescens character is determined by a single pair of dominant genes, and there is segregation when virescens pisifiera pollen sources are used.

ASD’s breeding efforts are focused on purifying varieties where a variable proportion of palms carry this character (Deli x Nigeria and Compact x Nigeria), so eventually all plants would produce virescens bunches.

It is now known that fruit color segregates in the descendants of some tenera and pisifera palms of Nigeria origin. Among these, three tenera and three pisifera palms, where the virescens character is in an homozygous condition, were identified.

These pure-virescens palms are moderate producers of fresh fruit bunches but they have lower oil content in the bunch. On the other hand, the best descendants (higher yields) come from palms with the heterozygous condition. One logical next step is searching for molecular markers associated with the virescens gene and then looking in progeny tests for the best palms in terms of yield and also carrying the gen in an homzygous condition. One final goal is obtaining T/P commercial populations (AVROS, Ekona, Ghana, La Mé, Compact) with the virescens character as a result of a gene introgression process, to initiate the evaluation and purification in conventional experiments or through genetic engineering.

Cosme (Cosman) Chavez: an inspiring example or the history of data processing in ASD

Cosme has marked a deep track when it comes to overcoming obstacles and has shown that many things are possible when the brains are the only asset available and there is an honest wish for achievement and a continuous effort to fight for it. His example is inspiring, since his origins are very humble, same as those of so many hundreds of men that live pushed to start making a living since very young, but without offering many opportunities, but much hard work.
There was no sweet adolescence for Cosme. Being 14 years old had to start working as a peon, where, machete in hand, had to cope in effort and results with many other adults that labored in all sort of agricultural activities (harvesting coffee, planting grains, cowboy, etc.). One of his favorite anecdotes is when chased by a crazy horse, had to do a very complicated physical maneuver to escape, and that now accepts as impossible considering his age.

In 1971, went looking for a job to the oil palm plantations of the United Fruit Co. south of Costa Rica. Being an unskilled worker, he did not have much where to choose from and hence he started down in the ladder as a ‘loose fruit picker’. The local name for this job (coyolero) designates those persons that despite unfriendly weeds, snakes or any other danger, collect those fruits that come loose from ripe bunches, before and after harvesting. This job, commonly considered the most humble of all in oil palm plantations was not clearly what Cosme aimed for, and his attitude was rapidly noted by his superiors. After several years, doing different field and later administrative works, he learned the day to day most frequent activities of a commercial oil palm plantation, but now working for the Palm Research Program, that would become part of ASD. Here comes another anecdote that illustrates Cosme’s personality. He had to learn by himself to drive a agricultural tractor, since he was so shy at that time that had no courage to tell that he did not know how to do it or ask for help. Now, with a smile in his mouth, he tells the funny details of the story.

It was soon noted by his superiors that he had an innate ability to work with numbers, so he was assigned the responsibility of managing the information coming from the breeding experimental station. During these early years (seventies), he was also responsible to put to work a new laboratory of bunch analysis and the incipient seed processing unit of the research station.

Cosme’s autodidactic learning of informatics closely follows the development of this discipline in ASD during the seventies and eighties in Costa Rica. From pencil and paper, it came the first machine able to do some basic operations. This was a ‘Monroe’ that worked by cranking a handle until a bell rang indicating that an arithmetic calculus had been finished. From this machine, that now makes us smile, not without some degree of compassion, it came the first programmable HP (with a staggering number of 200 programmable steps!) that Cosme (armed with a dictionary, and with no previous knowledge of the English language what so ever), put to work to process the data coming from the bunch analysis laboratory. This was quite an achievement certainly, and speaks of Cosme’s intelligence and perseverance.

Later, a ‘Sinclair’ machine appeared in scene. This machine could be programmed in Basic, but soon gave space to a Texas Instrument that had to be connected to a TV screen. In 1884, the first PC (IBM) was acquired, but, since it had no hard disk, all the information had to be manipulated with two floppy discs units (346 K). This machine, considered a real breakthrough at that time cost US$ 9,000. The XT of IBM followed, which had a hard disk unit of 10 MB and worked with dBasic. Finally, Cosme was the one in charge of programming the ‘System 36’’ of IBM that worked with five terminals. Nowdays, the history is quite different, computers are easier to operate, more powerful and have better support from the suppliers.

In 1991, Cosme was moved to ASD’s headquarters in San José, where his life is (or is supposed to be) more uncomplicated, and he is in charge of designing and following the informatics systems for production and sales of seeds and clones, pollination activities and sales of the different products. Besides this, he is always ready to give informatics support to his colleagues and collaborate in some of ASD’s publication, such as ASD Oil Palm Papers.

So many years of experience, has made of Cosme a necessary guru for novices in informatics and even for some professionals in this discipline. His tenacity and ability to solve problems with limited resources is an example for those who waste their time and energy looking for excuses for its lack of action and the negative consequences that come with this. Cosme, simply accepted that he was born with a set of cards, but made a very good use of them.

Training courses for our clients

ASD has a long tradition organizing training courses on oil palm cultivation and management of commercial plantations. Such courses have been offered mainly in Costa Rica and several other countries as well. The last training course on agronomy was offered in Costa Rica in July 2009, and we are now preparing the next one for July 2010. Details on this new course can be checked on our web site http://www.asd-cr.com/curso/index.htm

Visits of our friends and clients

ASD constantly receives numerous visitors at its headquarters in San José, Costa Rica, and at its facilities and research station in Coto (in the south Pacific region), where they can see firsthand our procedures and the performance of different planting materials. The list of people who have honored us with their visits is indeed very long. Some of our distinguished visitors during the past year of 2009 are listed in Table 1.