Gene Provides Reliable Visual Cue for Oil Palm Fruit Ripeness

A team of scientists from the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) in Malaysia and Orion Genomics in the United States has identified the VIR gene as responsible for oil palm fruit color. The majority of oil palm fruit harvested in Malaysia and Indonesia is the nigrescens variety of fruit, which has black to deep purple skin that changes little or not at all when ripe. However, in the rare virescens oil palm, fruits change color from green to bright orange when ripe, signaling the optimal time for harvesting.

Every day, in more than 15 million hectares of Indonesian and Malaysian oil palm plantations, harvesters spend their days gazing up at the fruit, which can be up to 60 feet above them, to determine if the purple orbs are at their peak ripeness and oil content. With the new VIR gene knowledge, palm growers can begin to replace their nigrescens palms with virescens plants, and eventually eliminate the need for harvesters to make judgment call on over 20 billion bunches of oil palm fruit harvested annually. This will increase the efficiency of the harvest and the oil yield from existing agricultural lands.

Read more about this at http://www.oriongenomics.com/press/pr_20140630_science.html.