By R. Bourdeix, 2018.
Before reading this section, please visit first the section on Understanding coconut reproductive biology.
Many farmers have in their home garden, or in their plantation, at least one or two palms producing orange or yellow fruits. In most of the case, these palms are dwarf types.
In this case, the simplest way to produce hybrids is to the seednuts of these palms, make them germinate and select them on the color of the sprout:
Before reading this section, please visit first the section on Understanding coconut reproductive biology.
Many farmers have in their home garden, or in their plantation, at least one or two palms producing orange or yellow fruits. In most of the case, these palms are dwarf types.
In this case, the simplest way to produce hybrids is to the seednuts of these palms, make them germinate and select them on the color of the sprout:
- In the case of yellow fruited palms: select only the seedlings with green or brown colored sprouts. These are hybrids between the yellow palm and unknown fathers (in fact green or brown coconut palms growing around). Remove all the yellow sprouted seedlings, use the fruits for instance for feeding animals.
- In the case of red fruited palms: select only the seedlings with brown colored sprouts. These are hybrids between the yellow palm and unknown fathers (in fact green or brown coconut palms growing around). Remove all the red sprouted seedlings.
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These green and brown sprouted seedlings are natural hybrids. In most cases, will produce at least 50% more fruits than the unselected local Talls coconut palms. The proportion of hybrids will generally be low, probably from 5% to 20% of the total seedlings.
It is also possible to produce hybrids (or secured crosses between two distinct palms of the same varieties) on all green palms, by selecting only the brown sprout; in this case the male parent would most probably be the brown colored coconut palms located around the green one. These "brown sprouted" from green parent will probably produce at least 10% more than average.
There is a way to strongly increase the proportion of hybrids by emasculating during a certain period the inflorescence of the Yellow and Red palms. But in this case, you will have to wait more one year for the bunches to mature and for getting your hybrid seednuts! Technique for emasculation, or early removing of the male flowers, will be explained in the framework of another project.
