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

Best Management Practices (BMP) in oil palm plantations were introduced in Ghana, West Africa in 2013. The study aimed at identifying and implementing improved agronomic management practices that meet site-specific needs and opportunities for enhanced productivity, profitability, and environmental sustainability of oil palm production by providing assistance in training, agronomic and economic data analysis, and planning for wide-scale implementation of BMPs at a commercial scale.

Parallel sets of comparable oil palm blocks, representative of a plantation, were selected at three commercial plantations. Site-specific BMPs were then introduced in one block, while standard estate practices were maintained in the other block, thus considered as a control or reference block (REF). In 2017, field conditions in the BMP blocks were at a steady state, but fruit bunch yields at all plantation sites declined compared to 2016. This was most likely due to the drought that occurred two years earlier. Average yields at the BMP blocks decreased to 17.2 t/ha fruit bunches and 14.8 t/ha at REF blocks, a yield difference of 2.4 t/ha, or 16% between the two treatments. While field upkeep was good in most blocks, fertilizer recommendations for 2017 were not implemented by the estates except for the Norpalm plantations.

Results of the fertilizer trial did not show clear yield responses, but identified nitrogen and potassium to be the most limiting nutrients in Ghanaian oil palm systems. In the irrigation trial, the treatment effects began to show after 36 months because of the time-lag between removal of agronomic constraints and their effect on yield. The irrigation+fertilizer (I1F1) treatment produced an extra yield of about 5 t/ha over the control plot that had no irrigation or fertilizer, and >4 t/ha for the fertilizer alone or irrigation alone treatments. In 2018, the differences are expected to be more pronounced, with yields of >35 t/ha at the I1F1 treatment.

Training activities have enhanced the capacity of the plantations to adapt components of BMPs at plantation scale. Results of the trials are expected to further increase capacity on water and 4R nutrient management, particularly for marginal production areas and hilly landscapes in Ghana.