Oil palm plantations in Malaysia are cultivated with the eight
generation of Elaeis guineensis, tenera oil palm. The tenera is hybrid
oil palm derived from crosses between dura and pisifera using conventional
breeding approach. The breeding of first tenera oil palm
requires almost 12 years and 40 years for eight generations. This
was achieved by using large planting area due to open pollinating
behavior of oil palm. Therefore, the production of new traits or
varieties of oil palm by conventional breeding is significantly slow.
Consequently, the oil palm has a major problem with incomplete
dominance inheritance. For example, the tenera fruits showed all
three fruit forms, dura: tenera: pisifera, in a ratio of 1:2:1, indicates
the incomplete dominance dura over pisifera. This means only
50% of the fruits maintained the property of tenera. This problem
makes the propagation of oil palm through seeds germination is
unsatisfactory.
As above, limited land resources for oil palm plantation, labor
shortage and problems with conventional breeding and seeds propagation,
it is important to find the strategies to solve the mentioned
aspects. One of the strategies is already on the way as the propagation
oil palm through tissue culture. Since oil palm is a single
growing apex and basal shoots cannot be produced, the propagation
of oil palm through vegetative tissue culture is impossible.
Thus, the oil palm tissue culture depends exclusively by somatic