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posted by on Thursday March 16 2017, @02:13PM   Printer-friendly
from the and-healthy! dept.

Palm oil is a commodity that generally evokes images of mass deforestation, human-rights violations and dying orangutans. In Indonesia and Malaysia, where some 85% of the world's palm oil is produced, more than 16 million hectares of land — rainforest, peat bogs and old rubber plantations — have been taken over by oil palm, and there is no sign of the industry slowing down.

Despite its bad reputation, oil palm is the most productive oil crop in the world. Oilseed rape (canola) currently produces only about one-sixth of the oil per hectare — soya bean only one-tenth. But oil-palm plantations still aren't getting as much as they could out of their plants.

The main problem is that genetic and epigenetic variables can cause some palms to underproduce. And because oil palms mature slowly, growers typically don't know for three to four years whether the trees they plant will turn out to be star performers or worthless wood.

That's where Orion comes in. When the leaf punches sent out around southeast Asia return, Orion technicians process the disc of greenery within and can send growers a report on the quality of their young plants. Lakey predicts that, if adopted on a large scale, the test could raise industry revenue by about US$4 billion per year. And, importantly, it could do so without expanding plantations. "We can get more oil for an equivalent area of land — this could help take the pressure off deforestation," Lakey says.

The world's most hated crop is not kale?


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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Thursday March 16 2017, @05:35PM (2 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday March 16 2017, @05:35PM (#479918) Journal

    The most hated crop in the world has to be rocks. Many farmers claim that nothing grows well on their land, except rocks. Arkansas land is better than some farmland on this earth. It grows rocks, ticks, and rattlesnakes.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 16 2017, @05:47PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 16 2017, @05:47PM (#479925)

    rain, water gets under rocks, freeze -- expansion of the ice moves rocks toward the surface