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. In 2013, Best Management Practices (BMP) were implemented in Ghana, West Africa, with the aim of identifying and implementing improved agronomic management practices that meet site-specific needs and opportunities for enhanced productivity, profitability and environmental sustainability. The project also provides assistance in training, agronomic and economic data analysis, and planning for wider scale implementation of BMPs 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 standard estate practices are maintained, thus considered as a control or reference block (REF). By the end of 2015, field conditions in the BMP blocks have improved significantly and are approaching steady state largely a result of the improved agronomic practices, not fertilizers (fertilizer treatments take 2 to 3 years to show a response). The fertilizer recommendations have been followed in most BMP blocks, and the installation of V-shaped drains is well underway. Woody weeds have been successfully removed with herbicide application as well as manual labor. As a result, fruit bunch production increased with 24% (+3.0 t/ha) averaged across all estates. We expect the effect of nutrient management changes to increase BMP yields even more by mid-2016.

Two trials were established early 2015. An irrigation trial at Norpalm Ghana Ltd. and a catena trial at Benso Oil Palm Plantation (BOPP). The objective of the trials is to quantify yield gaps caused by water and topography as a result of differing soil texture and water-holding capacity. For both trials, as well as the fertilizer trial initiated in 2014, we aim to provide entry points for increasing productivity. By the end of 2015, treatment effects on bunch yield were not significant for all trials. This is likely due to the time-lagged effect of water and nutrients on bunch production. We anticipate significant treatment effects by the end of 2016.

Results of the trials will benefit the plantations in identifying and the correcting management practices that account for yield gaps due to nutrient and water constraints. One of the key objectives for 2016 therefore is to generate new knowledge on site-specific management (nutrient, water, agronomics) and sustainable yield intensification of oil palm in Ghana, and to upscale and understand the BMP implementation process at estate level.