Authors: Haniff M.H., Zuraidah Yahya, Afifah Abdul Razak, Jusoh Latif,
M. Ayatollah Khomeini A Rahman and Norman Kamarudin |
Abstract: The oil palm being a rain-fed crop, its yield could be influenced by any severe changes in the
rain intensity and/or its distribution. Some important environmental stresses such as drought
or extreme rainfall could have a great impact on the crop productivity. The intensity will
depend on the severity, duration and time of stress in relation to the oil palm crop phenology.
The sensitive stages of growth towards stresses are during the initial inflorescence and fruit
development stages. This paper investigates the relationships between rainfall and FFB yield
production in three different regions in Malaysia. Results show that oil palm FFB yield was
affected by the low rainfall during severe El Nino events and excessive rainfall during La
Nina events. However, the severity of an El Nino event is largely determined by the number
of months with less than 100 mm rainfall, which has been very low since 2007. The reduction
in FFB yield from the recent weak or moderate El Nino events was minimal. The FFB yield
during the strong El Nino event in 2015was slightly reduced by 0.8% to 18.48 t ha-1
yr-1
from
18.63 t ha-1
yr-1 in 2014. Sabah had a decline of 6.3% to 19.99 t ha-1
yr-1
as compared to 21.34
t ha-1
yr-1
in the previous year. However, Peninsula and Sarawak recorded increases in FFB
yield, where Peninsula improved by 3.0% to 18.77 t ha-1
yr-1
, while Sarawak increased
slightly by 0.5% to 16.21 t ha-1
yr-1
. Low FFB yield was significantly correlated with high
rainfall events after 5- or 6-month lag intervals and could be strongly linked to poor fruit set.
There was a significant reduction in FFB yield at the16-month lag interval after high rainfall
event (? 200 mm month-1
) compared to low rainfall event (< 200 mm month-1
) that could be
attributed to high abortion rate and low sex ratio. The observed increase in FFB yields at the
lag intervals of10-monthafter high rainfall event and 12-month after low rainfall event could
probably be caused by a decreased in inflorescence abortion rate. |