时间：2022-10-25 01:20:52
Adzemi Mat Arshad, Mustika Edi Armanto and Abdullah Md. Zain
Faculty of Agrotechnology and Food Science, University Malaysia Terengganu, Terengganu 21030, Malaysia
Received: July 18, 2011 / Accepted: September 20, 2011 / Published: February 20, 2012.
Abstract: At the moment there is no system to evaluate climate suitability for oil palm cultivation. Most of land evaluation systems in Peninsular Malaysia often overlooked climate as not important on the assumption that the effect of climatic factors on oil palm yield are small. The system to evaluate climate suitability was proposed and it follows the FAO Framework for Land Evaluation but employs a parametric approach using climatic data which are easily available. The climatic criteria used are mean annual temperature, mean daily maximum temperature, mean daily minimum temperature, mean annual rainfall, length of dry season, amount of sunshine and mean annual relative humidity. The evaluation of climate was carried out using information from nine meteorological stations in Peninsular Malaysia viz. Alor Star (Kedah), Ipoh (Perak), Kuala Lumpur, Malacca (Malacca), Kluang (Johore), Senai (Johore), Kuantan (Pahang), Kuala Krai (Kelantan) and Tanah Merah (Kelantan). The results for actual suitability classification showed that eight of the stations are highly suitable (S1) for oil palm cultivation with land indices ranging from 75 to 93. One station Alor Star is moderately suitable (S2y) due to dry season. The results for potential suitability classification showed that all the stations are highly suitable for oil palm cultivation with land indices ranging from 90 to 99.
Key words: Climate, oil palm, Peninsular Malaysia.
1. Introduction??
Oil palm is an important industry in Malaysia economy producing 17.5 millions tons of crude palm oil and remained as the world’s second largest producer and exporter of palm oil in 2010. The oil palm constitutes one of thirty-four land use categories in Malaysia and it occupies 43% of the total agricultural land use in Malaysia.
Climate is often assumed to be the same or it is considered that differences due to climate are insignificant. Climate often defines ecological zones. As such the evaluation of climate forms a very important part in land evaluation.
The relationship between climate and yield of oil palm is not well studied in this country. Research carried out in other countries has shown that climatic variations have resulted in a reduction of yields of oil palm [1]. A system that integrates all relevant climatic features to evaluate climate suitability for oil palm cultivation is lacking. This study aims to evaluate climate suitability for oil palm cultivation in Peninsular Malaysia.
2. Materials and Methods
Peninsular Malaysia is located within the equatorial zone between latitudes 1°5′ and 6°45′ N and longitudes 99° and 104°20′E. South China Sea lies to the east, while Straits of Malacca to the west of the peninsula. Peninsular Malaysia has an area of 13.2 million hectares. Its greatest length is about 735 km and the maximum width is about 320 km.
The evaluation criteria of climate suitability for oil palm considered the climatic features that affect growth and yield of oil palm. The criteria chosen are mean annual temperature, mean daily maximum temperature, mean daily minimum temperature, mean annual rainfall, length of dry season, amount of sunshine and mean annual relative humidity.
Nine meteorological stations in Peninsular Malaysia were selected for the study. They are Alor Star (Kedah), Ipoh (Perak), Kuala Lumpur, Malacca (Malacca), Kluang (Johore), Senai (Johore), Kuantan (Pahang), Kuala Krai (Kelantan) and Tanah Merah (Kelantan). These nine stations are situated within the five rainfall regions [2]. These towns are also focal points where large hectareages of oil palm are cultivated. The climatic data from Malaysian Meteorological Services Department between 2000 with 2010 of the above stations were used in this study. Only one example of the climatic data of these stations is presented as shown in Table 1 as it involved the same calculation.
The principles of FAO [3, 4] were used together with the methodology of combined limitation-parametric evaluation methods. In the parametric approach the ratings for each climatic factor were multiplied in order to obtain a final score called climatic index. Climatic indices were expressed as percentages.
The ratings for the degree of limitations for the evaluation of climate [5] are as shown in Table 2. The evaluation criteria of climatic requirements for oil palm cultivation as proposed by Adzemi [6] was used in this study as shown in Table 3.
Evaluation of Climate in the Regions: The following defines the suitability of climate for oil palm cultivation.
Order S: Suitable: climate presenting no, slight or moderate limitations and not more than one severe limitation that, however, allows a successful sustained oil palm cultivation. The climatic index is between 100 with 25;
Class S1: Very suitable: climate presenting no significant limitations to sustained oil palm cultivation or only slight limitations that will not significantly reduce productivity. The climatic index is 100 to 75;
Class S2: Moderately suitable: climate presenting slight or moderate limitations which in aggregate are moderately severe for sustained oil palm cultivation. The climatic index is 74 to 50;
Class S3: Marginally suitable: climate presenting moderate limitations and or not more than one very severe limitation which in aggregate are severe for a sustained oil palm cultivation. The climatic index is 49 to 25;
Table 1 Climatic data for Alor Star ( average over 10 years).
Table 2 Limitation levels and their ratings.
Order N: Not suitable: climate presenting severe or very severe limitations which preclude a successful sustained oil palm cultivation. The climatic index < 24. The separation of this order into classes N1 and N2 was not done in this thesis due to insufficient data.
The following symbols are used in defining the sub-classes according to the type of limitations present:
t:Temperature: relates to the mean temperature, mean daily maximum temperature or mean daily minimum temperature;
p : Precipitation: relates to the mean annual rainfall;
s : Sunshine: relates to the sunshine hours;
h : Humidity: relates to the mean relative humidity of the air;
y : Relates to the length of the dry season.
Table 3 Climatic requirements for oil palm cultivation.
3. Results and Discussion
3.1 The Diagnostic Criteria Chosen
The criteria chosen are mean annual temperature, mean daily maximum temperature, mean daily minimum temperature, mean annual rainfall, length of dry season, amount of sunshine and mean annual relative humidity.
Temperature condition has a strong effect on oil palm growth and yield production.
Rainfall is the most important element of climate for growth of oil palm. The highest yields are obtained with the most favorable conditions. In areas where draught of 2-4 months’ duration occurs there is a tendency for large fluctuation in yield from year to year within a very low yield occurring at intervals of 4-6 years.
For the optimal oil palm production, sunshine should be constant and amount to be at least 5 hr·day-1 in all months and up to 7 hr·day-1 in some months [7]. Inadequate sunshine reduces net assimilation rate and production of female inflorescence. In some parts of Peninsular Malaysia the mean duration of sunshine is lower than 5 hr·day-1 during the early months of the north east monsoon season and this may affect oil palm yields.
Several new findings have been reported on the various aspects of the dominant role played by solar radiation in oil palm. Total annual radiation receive at 6.2 GJ·m-2 the interception and conversion of the photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) in the profile of mature palms derived from crosses and clines as examined by their varying extinction coefficients (K) under different environments in Malaysia has been reported [8-9]. The photosynthetically active radiation(PAR), interception the efficiency (e) of conversion to dry matter and the partitioning (p) of total dry matter to vegetative and reproduction tissues affected by agronomic treatments such as fertilizers, density, physiologically factors like respiration and age of palm[8, 10].
Oil palm has been grown successfully in West Malaysia where relative humidity is 93% in land. Humidity has some important indirect effects on agriculture mainly thorough the incidence of insect pests and diseases. This risk can be reduced by proper selection of resistant clones.
3.2 Climatic Conditions of the Regions
The results of the climatic conditions for Alor Star, Ipoh, Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Kluang, Senai, Kuantan, Kuala Krai and Tanah Merah showed that mean daily minimum temperature is > 22 oC, mean daily maximum temperature is > 30 oC and mean temperature is > 26 oC for all the stations. The annual rainfall for Kuantan is > 3,000 mm while the annual rainfall for Alor Star is > 1,800 mm. The rest of the stations receive > 2,000 mm of annual rainfall. The annual sunshine is > 2,000 hours for all the stations except for Senai (Johore) while annual relative humidity is > 80% for all the stations.
Table 4 shows the evaluation of climate for oil palm cultivation in the regions. All the regions have slight limitations to good oil palm cultivation resulting from high mean annual relative humidity due to high rainfall. In addition the following limitations occur in various regions. Alor Star has slight limitation due to insufficient rain, uneven distribution of rainfall resulting in occurrence of dry season. Senai, Kuantan, Kuala Krai and Tanah Merah have slight limitations to good oil palm cultivation because not enough sunshine hours especially during the month of August to December due to high rainfall during these months.
The actual climatic suitability for oil palm cultivation is based on its present condition without modifications to overcome the deleterious effects associated with the climatic features. The potential climate suitability is based on the fact that the effects of high relative humidity can be overcome.
The criteria for evaluating the suitability of the climate for oil palm cultivation are proposed and rated according to a severity of limitation method combined with a parametric approach. The criteria chosen are as shown in Table 2 and considered the following characteristics: mean annual temperature, mean daily maximum temperature, mean daily minimum temperature, mean annual rainfall, length of dry season, sunshine duration and mean annual relative humidity of the air. All these features are known to affect the growth and performance of oil palm.
Six factors in the evaluation of climate for oil palm were considered [5], being annual rainfall, length of dry season, mean annual maximum temperature, average daily minimum temperature, mean annual temperature and actual total sunshine hours per annum divided by the total maximum possible sunshine hours per annum. When the criteria in Table 2 were compared with that proposed [5] the limits were found to be similar in both systems. The collection of the climatic data for the nine regions in the country leads to a subsequent evaluation of the climatic suitability for oil palm cultivation in Peninsular Malaysia.
Table 4 Evaluation of climate for oil palm in the different regions in Peninsular Malaysia.
Although it is not possible to change the climatic limitations, it is possible to overcome some of their deleterious effect such as a high relative humidity of the air is conducive to disease incidence such as leaf spot. Oil palm is a form of rainfed agriculture system and at mature stage nothing is done with regards to the limitation of insufficient rainfall.
The limitation of the presence of a dry season is not corrected in the mature stage of oil palm cultivation although at the young stage of oil palm growth certain agronomic practices are sometimes adopted to conserve moisture such as the process of mulching.
The climatic indices for the actual climate suitability for Ipoh (93), Kuala Lumpur (93), Malacca (87), Kluang (90), Senai (86), Kuantan (85), Kuala Krai (75) and Tanah Merah (75) are considered to be highly suitable for the cultivation of oil palm except that of Alor Star is considered to be moderately suitable (74) S2y. Considering that the deleterious effects of high relative humidity of air is the only factor that is overcome in oil palm cultivation, the potential suitability of climate for oil palm cultivation is shown to be highly suitable (S1) for all the nine regions studied. However, there is a variation in the climatic indices which ranges from 90 to 99 units(Table 4).
4. Conclusion
The FAO Framework for Land Evaluation which employs a parametric approach using climatic data are easily available to evaluate climate suitability for oil palm cultivation. The potential suitability of climate for oil palm cultivation is shown to be highly suitable (S1) for all the nine regions studied. However, there is a variation in the climatic indices which ranges from 90 to 99 units.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Universiti Malaysia Terengganu for giving permission to publish this paper.
References
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[3] A Framework for Land Evaluation, Soil Bulletin No. 32, FAO, Rome, Italy, 1976, p. 32.
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[5] C. Sys, C. Van, E. Ranst, J. Debaveye, Land Evaluation Part 1, Inter. Train. Centre for Post-Grad, Soil Scientist. State Univ. Ghent, Ghent, Belgium, 1991, p. 274
[6] M.A. Adzemi, Development of land evaluation system for elaeis guineensis jacg. in peninsular Malaysia, Ph.D. Thesis, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang Selangor, Malaysia, 1999. p. 582.
[7] S.K. Ng, The oil palm, its culture, manuring and utilization, Inter. Potash Inst., Bern, Switzerland, 1972, p. 142
[8] G.R. Squire, Technique in environment physiology of oil palm 1, Measurements of Intercepted Radiation, PORIM Bulletin, Palm Oil Res. Inst, Malaysia, Bangi, Selangor, 1984, pp. 16-27.
[9] W. Gerritsma, Light interception and productivity in oil palm and its simulation, in: The ISOPB Workshop on Yield Potential of Oil Palm, Phuket, Thailand, May, 1990, pp. 21-28.
[10] R.H.V. Corley, Potential productivity of tropical perennial crop, Journal of Experimental Agriculture 19 (1983) 217-237.
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