Transferring Oil Palm Plantation Best Management Practices (BMP) from Southeast Asia to West Africa

The oil palm sector in West Africa is developing extensively, yet the plantations are under-performing, with reduced yields as low as one-third of the optimum. The project is applying the Best Management Practices (BMP) approach to identify and implement improved agronomic management practices that meet site-specific needs and opportunities for enhanced productivity, profitability, and environmental sustainability in palm oil plantations in Ghana. The project is also providing training to support industry wide implementation of BMP at a commercial scale.

Parallel sets of comparable oil palm blocks representative of a plantation were selected at three plantations. Site-specific BMPs were then introduced in one block, while in the other block, the standard estate practices are maintained, thus considered as a control or reference block (REF). The experimental set up is designed to provide an understanding of the maximum site yield potential, and the magnitude of yield gaps due to poor harvesting and management, and yield gaps due to nutrient constraints in the production phase.

Fresh fruit bunch (FFB) production continued to improve in 2014. By December 2014, an average difference of 2.6 t/ha (+18%) across all estates was achieved with BMP. The increase in productivity was mainly influenced by a higher crop recovery in BMP blocks, and an improved nutritional program. It is expected that the combined effect of improved agronomic and nutrient management will increase BMP yields even more by the end of 2015.

In order to understand the different components of yield gaps, several trials were established, including a fertilizer response trial, a catena trial, and an irrigation trial. These trials will most likely generate new insights into nutrient (Yn) and water limited (Yw) yields, and the yield performance as a result of topography and slope position. Results of the trials will benefit the plantations by identifying and correcting management practices that account for yield gaps due to nutrient- and water constraints.