Oil Palm Bulletin No. 70 (May 2015) p8-12

Estimating Oil Content of Commercially Harvested Oil Palm Fresh Fruit Bunches – A Step towards Increasing Palm Oil Yields

C R Donough*, J Cock*, T Oberthür*, K Indrasuara**, Rahmadsyah#, Gatot, A R‡ and T Dolong‡‡

Oil palm growers are able to assign fresh fruit bunch (FFB) yields to individual blocks, and thus are able to manage their plantation (or smallholding) to optimise FFB yield. However, currently it is not possible to attribute oil extraction rate (OER), hence oil yield, in a similar way, because mills process FFB from many sources, deriving a common OER for all the FFB that is processed rather than for individual sources. OER depends on the intrinsic qualities of the FFB being milled, which is likely to differ from one batch of FFB to another, hence assessment of milling performance is better based on extraction efficiency rather than OER per se. The Southeast Asia Programme of the International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI SEA) recently showed that practices aimed at maximising FFB yield may not necessarily maximise OER. The bunch analysis (BA) method adapted by IPNI SEA for assessing oil content of FFB from commercial-scale harvesting in Indonesia can be implemented by plantations without much difficulty. BA and harvest audit data together allow growers to compute their Field Oil Recovery Efficiency (FORE), an assessment of the effectiveness of field practices on crop recovery and oil content. Pre-milling estimates of oil content (EOC) in harvested FFB allows mills to better measure their process performance based on their Mill Oil Recovery Efficiency (MORE). Knowledge of EOC will allow mills to pay growers for the oil content of their crop, providing further motivation to growers to improve FORE. These recovery efficiency measures allow a more holistic analysis of the overall oil recovery process involving the growers and the mills, likely leading to reduced friction and better overall performance.

Penanam sawit boleh menguruskan ladang mereka untuk mendapatkan hasil buah tandan segar (BTS) yang optimum dari setiap blok. Walau bagaimanapun, setakat ini tidak mungkin untuk menghubungkaitkan kadar perahan minyak (OER) dengan hasil minyak kerana kilang memproses BTS yang diperoleh daripada pelbagai sumber. Oleh itu, OER yang diperoleh adalah untuk semua BTS yang diproses, bukan daripada sumber individu. OER bergantung pada sifat intrinsik BTS yang diproses, yang berbeza antara kumpulan BTS. Oleh itu, penilaian prestasi pengilangan adalah lebih baik berdasarkan kecekapan pengekstrakan daripada OER per se. Baru-baru ini Southeast Asia Program of the International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI SEA) mendapati bahawa kaedah untuk memaksimumkan hasil BTS tidak semestinya dapat memaksimumkan OER. Analisis tandan (BA) adalah kaedah yang digunakan oleh IPNI SEA untuk menilai kandungan minyak BTS dari penuaian berskala komersial di Indonesia boleh dilaksanakan di ladang tanpa banyak halangan. Penanam sawit boleh mengunakan BA bersama data audit tuaian untuk mengira Kecekapan Pemulihan Minyak di Ladang (FORE) iaitu penilaian terhadap keberkesanan amalan ladang bagi pemulihan tanaman dan kandungan minyak. Anggaran kandungan minyak (EOC) dalam BTS pada peringkat pra-pengilangan membolehkan kilang untuk mengukur prestasi mereka dengan lebih baik berdasarkan Kecekapan Pemulihan Minyak Kilang (MORE). Dengan mengetahui EOC, kilang akan membayar penanam sawit berdasarkan kandungan minyak daripada tanaman mereka, seterusnya memberikan motivasi kepada penanam untuk memperbaiki FORE. Langkah kecekapan pemulihan ini membolehkan analisis yang lebih menyeluruh mengenai keseluruhan proses pemulihan minyak dan menjadikan prestasi keseluruhan lebih baik melibatkan penanam dan juga kilang.


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