COCONUT BREEDING OVERVIEW

Coconut breeding is the process of developing new coconut varieties with desirable traits like high yield, disease resistance, and early fruiting. Common methods include mass selection, hybridization (like crossing dwarf and tall varieties), and modern biotechnological techniques such as marker-assisted selection and speed breeding.

These methods aim to overcome challenges such as the long time it takes for coconuts to mature and reproduce.

COCONUT BREEDING OVERVIEW

Written by Julius Maot, Coconut Breeder, 2022.

Among other cash crops in Papua New Guinea (PNG) coconut is one of the major revenue earners besides providing various essential needs in the form of shelter, food, medicine, and other necessary conveniences. In fact, high proportion of the inhabitants along the coastal belt of PNG produces copra and therefore relies on the crop to meet daily needs. Most importantly more than 90% (Ovasuru, 2000) of the copra growers are small farmers, and in many instances, copra is the only source of cash income for the rural majority.

The coconut farmer in PNG continues to experience low yields of copra on their plantations. Low yields of coconut are contributed by low management inputs as well as the inferior planting materials used by the farmer. Coconut production in PNG is based mainly on the use of local tall varieties, which are often not selected and improved. On most plantations and small holder blocks unselected low yielding planting materials are used which directly contributes to low yield of copra in PNG. Also, high proportion of plantations in PNG is senile and their yields have been declining due to the old age. This was substantiated by the recent visit to Bogia in August 2020 comprised of the Provincial team and Kokonas Indastri Koporesen (KIK) seeing all or most of the coconut run-down plantations. This is possibly the scenario of the general status of coconut plantations in the country. Hence, urgent replanting program is essential for the continuity of the industry.

Other constraints to copra production in Papua New Guinea also related to infestation of pests and diseases such as Coconut Rhinoceros Beetle (CRB) and Bogia Coconut Syndrome (BCS) in the Bogia District of Madang. Farmers in the pest and disease prone areas continue to experience lower yield affecting their daily income from copra as well as their daily use as food for consumption. Consequently, many coconut farmers are disadvantaged from earning sufficient to sustain their livelihood. This is the current situation in Madang Province of the BCS gazette Districts namely; Sumkar mainland, Bogia and Madang.

Therefore, Kokonas Indastri Koporesen (KIK) of Papua New Guinea, through its breeding program aims to develop improved coconut planting materials for the farmers in PNG. The Coconut Breeding Program started in 1989 with a survey and identification of the genetic diversity in PNG. Collection and establishment of these diversities in the field gene bank started in 1993. Up to 41 tall and 12 dwarf varieties have been assembled and studied initially for characterization and then selection of parents for population improvement. The parents with the best combining abilities (GCA) will then be further developed to improve the quality of hybrids. Population improvement has been initiated to establish general combining abilities of the local tall populations with the three dwarf testers viz; Malayan Red Dwarf (MRD), Malayan Yellow Dwarf (MYD) and Papua New Guinea Brown Dwarf (PBD). Progenies were developed and are still being tested to identify parents with the best GCA potential.

Coconut Breeding Section under Productivity Improvement Program, emanating from KIK business plans 2016-2022 emphasizes on the development and release of ecologically adapted varieties with increased and stable yield as the main breeding strategy. The hybrid vigor expressed between the Dwarfs and Local Tall is the major source of hybridization to improve coconut production in the farmer’s field. The Breeding program was given another five (5) years starting from years 2018 to 2022 to further assess the mature palms before provisional release of the next and first hybrids from the current GCA Trials at Stewart Research Station in Madang. Attempts and plans are also made to assess pest and disease tolerance, yield and yield parameters, for instance VCO, Coir Fiber, Sucrose yield, etc. on the local varieties as well as exotic to identify best parents for future population improvement programs.

From the years of experience performing and conducting research and development works of coconuts, it is always very challenging in collating important data due to many factors. Some of these factors are financial constraints for daily operations, pests and diseases issues, height (tallness) of the palms, and longer period (10-15 or 20 years) of data collections amongst others.

However, the limited funding provided by the Government of PNG to KIK each year, the Coconut Breeding Program under its thematic program (Productivity Improvement Program) manages well to at least align its core research activities to the major projects notably BCS Gene bank Sanitation & Relocation Project. This enables and ensures the program’s activities’ plans is functioning to date.

The following website presentations is therefore based on facts and figures on the progress update outlining the current activities, achievements and status/outputs for the coconut breeding programs thus far into 2022 and in the last four years as well as plans beyond 2022.