The Oil Palm (3 Rev ed)

All aspects of the growth and exploitation of the oil palm are covered in this revised and updated edition which provides world-wide coverage of the plant. Exports of palm oil and kernel-oil have more than trebled since publication of the last edition in 1977 - the fastest development of any plantation crop.

This account of the plant is aimed at anyone taking a degree or diploma in tropical agriculture, and for all involved in the industry, whether as planters, cultivators or managers, as research or extension workers or workers at agricultural experimental stations. This book begins with an account of the history of the African semi-wild palm groves, and moves through the early trade in palm oil and kernels, to the advances of the 20th century.

Accounts are then provided of the oil palm as a plant, of the industry's growth to its present advanced state, and of the efforts made in diverse tropical regions to improve its cultivation, production and the extraction of its products. Subsequent chapters deal with the botany of the crop, the climate and soils needed to its culture, the research undertaken on oil palm physiology, selection and breeding, methods of cultivation, nutrition, diseases and pests, and the extraction of palm oil and kernels by both village and industrial methods. C.W.S. Hartley, who was for eight years Director of the West African Institute for Oil Palm Research, has been Consultant in Tropical Agriculture with special emphasis on oil plant research and development in Asia, Africa and America since 1963.

He has assisted in agricultural development schemes in over 20 countries.