Effects of Growing Media on Physiological Characteristics and Growth of Pre-nursery Stage Oil Palm Seedlings

Abstract

     Production of quality of oil palm seedlings is an important for success of palm plantations. Especially the oil palm seedling in the pre-nursery stage that requires quality planting materials for good growth of seedlings. The objective of this study was to compare suitable material for the growth of oil palm seedlings in the pre-nursery stage. Experiment at the Faculty of Natural Resources, Prince of Songkla University between March and July 2019, complete randomized design with SUP-PSU1 tenera oil palm seedlings was used as a test variety. The media used in 15 treatments were peat moss, vermicompost, coco peat, topsoil, male inflorescence of oil palm, peat-moss+vermicompost, peat-moss+coco peat, peat-moss+topsoil, peat-moss+male inflorescence of oil palm, vermicompost+coco peat, vermicompost+topsoil, vermicompost+male inflorescence of oil palm, coco peat+topsoil, coco peat+male inflorescence of oil palm and topsoil+male inflorescence of oil palm. It was found that the different media have statistically significant differences and seedling media containing male inflorescences which contribute to the seedling growth better than other composites. Moreover, it was found that in the material containing male flowers of palm oil showed increased leaf area and leaf greenness values, resulting in improved palm oil synthesis rate. Also found that only the material of male inflorescence of oil palm shows various characteristics higher than using only other materials as well. Therefore, the material that has the same amount of male inflorescence of oil palm is mixed in the oil palm seedlings in the pre-nursery stages of growth.