Agronomic Traits Evaluation of Selected Oil Palm Genotypes for Yield Enhancement on Njala Upland Soil

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This study was primarily undertaken to evaluate the fresh fruit bunch (FFB) yield performance among selected oil palm genotypes on Njala upland soil. An Independent Complete Randomised Design (ICRD) was used to carry out this field research. This study was conducted at the Njala University oil palm clonal seed garden, and the experiment was undertaken from 2021 to 2024. To determine the FFB yield, field research was carried out using four oil palm genotypes in an independent complete randomised design in four replications on 160 experimental sample palms. Three years of data were collected on yield and fruit bunch components, and vegetative traits. In the current study, 23 quantitative variables were used to evaluate the performance of four genotypes of oil palm. Through the analysis of variance, the morphological features of the different variants showed a wide range of variation. The traits were found to be influenced by the environment. Genotype Y26666B had the highest FFB yield at 188.31 (kg/palm/year), followed by genotype Y26515A at 171.58 (kg/palm/year). It was further examined that the FFB yield gap exists among the genotypes and all of them [Y26515A, Y26456A, Y26666B and Y26520C (13.16, 17.86, 11.90 and 17.86 t/genotype/year)], respectively, proved to have a high FFB yield gap. This showed that among the elite genotypes (Y26666B and Y26515A), there is a significant opportunity to increase their FFB yield. Correlation (r) validated that fruit bunch number had a more positive impact on FFB yield than average bunch weight. Heritability result revealed that the average bunch weight had the highest heritability percentage value of 82.50%. The findings suggested an alternative method for future studies; hence, genotype Y26666B could be selected as a parent for future breeding programs. However, the results could have been more informative if additional genotypes were selected and the conventional method was concurrently done with molecular studies.