Selection of pisifera parents based on progeny performance of D × P oil palm hybrids

Abstract

Proper selection of dura (female) and pisifera (male) parents is very important in the oil palm improvement programme for producing superior tenera hybrids. Unlike dura, it takes 8-10 years or sometimes even more, to select a pisifera parent based on field testing. Hence, it is imperative to select the parents at an early stage to save time and resources. Nursery performance is often considered as an indication of the future performance of a genotype in oil palm. Twelve pisifera parents were employed in crossing several dura mother palms and the progenies were evaluated in order to identify better male parents. The present study revealed that the pisifera parents P71 and L379 were the most promising and are closely related. These were followed by P82, P331 and P370 and which could be considered to be better male parents with respect to the progeny performance and could be employed as male parent in future breeding and hybrid seed production.