Mother palm selection
From the 2000's, the Ministry of Agriculture is no longer releasing seednuts of seedlings to farmers. Thus, selection of parent palms in only done by the farmers themselves. Taking into account the relative high number of coconut hybrids (MRDxRIT) in the country, farmers very probably harvest many seednuts on hybrids, and this is not a good practice. Please visit sections related to mother palms selection and hybrids in the website.
Nursery management
Searching to visit a farmer Coconut nursery, not yet found. The Ministry of Agriculture is not managing any coconut nursery. On the other hand, we visited an oil palm plantation very well managed by a private company. We saw immense nurseries managed professionally, young oil palms plantation well protected against the beetle.
They have an good multi-approach management of the beetle and they tell that during one month, they collected up to 15 tons of larva and beetles. Fertilization is managed by regular foliar diagnosis made in New Zealand. Palms receive in average 3 kg of mineral fertilizers per year, when Pacific islanders often told us that using such quantity of fertilizers is not affordable and not economically profitable.
Our visit to oil palms nurseries and plantations demonstrated that all the required technology is fully available in the Solomon islands to make high yielding coconut plantations, such as those visited by the expert in Brazil, producing 160 to 180 mature fruits per palm per year. Technology is in the hand of private companies presently planting only oil palm.
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Farming systems, harvest and post-harvest
On hundreds of hectares, the oil palm plantation also had implanted a cover plant fixing nitrogen, Pueraria Javanica. It well demonstrates that 1) this cover crop can grow very well in the Solomon and 2) They succeeded to solve the question of sourcing the seeds of this plant cover: in fact they do not use anymore seeds, they developped and use a cuttings technique. They experienced Mucuna but found it too aggressive, sometimes completely covering all the young palms.
Association with cocoa is widely practiced. Farmers are using coconut husk for protecting and nurturing young tree crops such as young avocado or cocoa trees, but they do not use it for young coconut palm, as this is often practiced in Sri Lanka for instance.
Husks are also sometimes let in heap in the plantation - all the husks from a large zone grouped in one place serving to extract the kernel. In Honaria, large heap of coconut husk resulting from coconut sellers activities are bordering the main road: at less than 50 m there are plantations of bananas but nobody have the idea to use the coconut husk around banana trees as fertilizers. Public awareness about the value of coconut husk as fertilizers is to be developed.
Dry leaves are often used to secure and maintain the paths of the plantation.
Treating the “Lazy” coconut palms
In Rennell Island, we met twice an old practice consisting in harming the stems (trunks) at about 150 cm height from the ground, by removing an external cylinder of about 20 cm width and 3 cm thick.. Elders from Rennell Island advised to apply such treatment to “lazy” coconut palms that produces only a few fruits or that suffers premature abortion of young fruits. This harming supposed to increase the production of the palm. We already meet a similar practice once, in North Mozambique: local tribes are practicing holes of about 15 cm wide, completely traversing the stem of the coconut palms considered as “lazy”.
Possible use of an invasive alga as organic fertilizer
Association with cocoa is widely practiced. Farmers are using coconut husk for protecting and nurturing young tree crops such as young avocado or cocoa trees, but they do not use it for young coconut palm, as this is often practiced in Sri Lanka for instance.
Treating the “Lazy” coconut palms
In Rennell Island, we met twice an old practice consisting in harming the stems (trunks) at about 150 cm height from the ground, by removing an external cylinder of about 20 cm width and 3 cm thick.. Elders from Rennell Island advised to apply such treatment to “lazy” coconut palms that produces only a few fruits or that suffers premature abortion of young fruits. This harming supposed to increase the production of the palm. We already meet a similar practice once, in North Mozambique: local tribes are practicing holes of about 15 cm wide, completely traversing the stem of the coconut palms considered as “lazy”.
Although this technique may have an effect, because practiced by two groups from very different regions, the expert does not advice to apply it. In Rennell as in Mozambique, most of the palms that received this treatment seems located close to houses in the villages. The palms may fall more easily in case of cyclones.
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| Rennell Island, Solomon |
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| Cabo del Gado, Mozambique |
Possible use of an invasive alga as organic fertilizer
In Tengano Lake, Rennell Island, we were very surprised about the very low level of aquatic life. Inhabitants had to introduce Tilapia sp because the lake contained almost no fish exept eels. They eat almost exclusively Tilapia fish at a small stage (15-18 cm) that is forbidden to catch in many countries. They is no weeds except a kind of ugly pulverulent weed of yellow-green-grey color, making the water dirty. This weed seems very invasive and sometimes it deposits on the lake floor as a layer of more than one meter thick. Suggestion have been made to test this alga as an organic fertilizer for coconut palm and other crops. A solar pumping system could bring water laden with seaweed onto a sandbox for filtration; the algae would be used either directly or after drying and maceration. It might also be interesting to introduce into the lake a fresh water alga carefully chosen to feed the fish.
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| Tilapia sp feeding on a coconut in Tengano lake |
