New Member - UK
Admin CoconutExperts
Roland BOURDEIX
Dear all,
Here is the first description with pictures of one of the rarest coconut varieties from French Polynesia:
http://cocotierpolynesie.blogspot.com/2011/06/les-cocotiers-nains-rouges-compacts.html
This is a Compact Red Dwarf, producing big round fruit of red-orange color; the young fruits show inside the husk a typical pink color, like the pink color found in the Pilipog Green Dwarf from the Philipinnes. This dwarf seems to be mainly allogamous. Its stem and leaves are quite similar to those of the Niu Leka Dwarf from Fiji.
This kind of dwarf will be very precious in the future, especially for production of hybrid seednuts. If you plant in geographical isolation this red dwarf mixed together with a green variety (dwarf or tall); then you will obtain seednuts s recognizable in the nursery.
Seednuts with green sprouts will be the green variety, seednut with red sprouts will be the red dwarf, and seednuts with brown sprouts will be natural hybrids between the red dwarf and the green variety. Both conservation of the two varieties and production of hybrid seednuts are done in a single location.
In this process, no need to make costly emasculation, because the red dwarf is allogamous. No need also to plant this seedgarden in a research institute: such a design can be easily managed by farmers in farmer’s fields, as geographical isolation is available.
So in the future, even in a small pacific country, we could imagine 20 farmers producing locally 20 differents kinds of hybrids using their own varieties as male parents… This idea needs to be refined, but this could lead to a complete change in the policies of coconut seednut production at world level.
An illustration of a quite similar process of seed production is given here for Samoa:
http://coconutsamoa.blogspot.com/2010/03/we-are-trying-to-convince-samoan.html
A question is about the genetic origin of this Compact Red Dwarf: is it a late progeny of Marechal hybrids? Or is it the progeny of a natural cross between Niu leka and a red dwarf such as Haari Papua ? We will do soon some DNA analysis to study this point.
Kind regards
Dr Roland Bourdeix
Hugh Harries
You might like to read what Roger Whitehead said about Niu leka in
1966 (see below) when he visited Mahina. Apparently the ones he saw
were introduced from Mauke in the Cook Islands and were reported by
Millaud in 1959.
Do you have a picture that shows the short leaves, particularly the
way the leaflets overlap along the mid-rib? This was a feature of the
Niu leka and the Fiji-Malayan that he identified in Jamaica. When I
left Jamaica in 1978 the research department had started planting FM
in progeny rows at Caenwood but I later heard that they were washed
away by a tidal surge during a hurricane.
There was also a very attractive row of FMxJT at Fair Prospect that
did not have a single loss to LY in more than 11 years (while a
neighbouring row of JT had a 100% wipe-out). You will have to ask the
Jamaicans whether any survived the 2000 epidemic.
It would seem that the suggestion made a few weeks ago for a Global
Coconut Genome Consortium has not caught the interest of anyone going
to the IBC in Melbourne in July. Perhaps you could offer some words of
encouragement?
Regards
Hugh
Extract from Whitehead, R.A. (1966) Sample survey and collection of
coconut germplasm in the Pacific islands (30 May - 5 September 1964).
Ministry of Overseas Development. HMSO, London. pp 31 & 33.
3. PALMS WITH DWARF HABIT
A. KINDS OF DWARF PALM OBSERVED
Four main kinds of Dwarf palm have been observed during the course of
the survey; they are the ‘Fiji Dwarf’ or ‘Niu Leka’ (and one
resembling this closely though not definitely the same), the ‘Malayan
Dwarf’, the small red-fruited Dwarf known in Tahiti as Haari papua and
a fourth kind represented by a single palm seen in New Ireland and
reported to have been introduced from Ceylon.
3. (i) ‘Niu Leka’
Palms with this name are present in various parts of the Fiji Islands,
in Tonga and as Niu Le’a in Western Samoa. Approximately 8 or 9 acres
are established at Mua Estate on the island of Taveuni. Some of these
palms, now approximately 40 years old and 30 to 40 ft tall (Fig. 15A),
were used in the early pollination work of Marechal (1928). Their
precise origin is not known. Marechal (l.c.) indicated that within an
inflorescence the male phase was always concluded one to five days
before the female phase began. In addition, there was no over-lapping
between consecutive inflorescences.
Marechal compared the ‘Malayan Dwarf’ and the ‘Niu Leka’ and mentioned
the variability of the latter with regard to spadix characters, colour
and shape of nut, and gross morphology of the crown. The crown of the
palm is commonly heavy and dense with short leaves, heavy mid-ribs and
broad attachment to the trunk. There are often large numbers of
branches and female flowers in the inflorescence. Some palms observed
at Mua during the present trip had a small bract at the base of the
inflorescence and inside the main spathe, a characteristic which is
unusual in other Tall or Dwarf palms (Fig. 14B).
Brief mention of the ‘Niu Leka’ has been made by McPaul (1962) and
Parham (1964). Fruit colours observed were remarkably uniform at Mua
and at Vunilagi and Maravu on the island of Vanua Levu. The majority
of fruits were strong Yellow Brown 10YR 5/6* or Light Olive 10Y 5/5,
while a few were deep Yellow 2.5Y 6/8.
*Munsell notations.
The data for Vunilagi is likely to be more representative as the Mua
analyses were on material discarded from shipment on account of
immaturity. Sections of mature fruits more resembled those of the
Tonga palms (Fig. 16A). Various estimates suggest between 5,000 and
6,000 nuts for one ton of copra: the analysis data leans more towards
the lower of these figures.
Palms with similar characteristics but with a tendency for
intra-spadix overlapping of female and male flowering cycles occur on
the island of Tahiti at Mahina (Fig. 16B); these palms were apparently
introduced from Mauke in the Cook Islands (Pomier, personal
communication August 1964), and are known locally as Haari Haeha
(Millaud 1959).
‘Niu Leka’ palms differ markedly from the ‘Malayan Dwarf’ palms and
are shorter than ‘Malayan Dwarf ’ palms of similar age.
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coconut" group.
>
> Having difficulty accessing the group website ? Get help by writing, in confidence, to coconu...@googlegroups.com
>
> Getting too many emails? The abridged email option (no more than 1 email per day) gives a summary of new activity each day; the digest email option (approximately 1 email per day) gives up to 25 full new messages bundled into a single email. For more options, go to http://groups.google.com/group/coconut/subscribe
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to coconut-u...@googlegroups.com
Melissa McEwen
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Dear all,
>
> > Here is the first description with pictures of one of the rarest coconut varieties from French Polynesia:
>
> > This is a Compact Red Dwarf, producing big round fruit of red-orange color; the young fruits show inside the husk a typical pink color, like the pink color found in the Pilipog Green Dwarf from the Philipinnes. This dwarf seems to be mainly allogamous. Its stem and leaves are quite similar to those of the Niu Leka Dwarf from Fiji.
>
> > This kind of dwarf will be very precious in the future, especially for production of hybrid seednuts. If you plant in geographical isolation this red dwarf mixed together with a green variety (dwarf or tall); then you will obtain seednuts s recognizable in the nursery.
>
> > Seednuts with green sprouts will be the green variety, seednut with red sprouts will be the red dwarf, and seednuts with brown sprouts will be natural hybrids between the red dwarf and the green variety. Both conservation of the two varieties and production of hybrid seednuts are done in a single location.
>
> > In this process, no need to make costly emasculation, because the red dwarf is allogamous. No need also to plant this seedgarden in a research institute: such a design can be easily managed by farmers in farmer’s fields, as geographical isolation is available.
>
> > So in the future, even in a small pacific country, we could imagine 20 farmers producing locally 20 differents kinds of hybrids using their own varieties as male parents… This idea needs to be refined, but this could lead to a complete change in the policies of coconut seednut production at world level.
>
> > An illustration of a quite similar process of seed production is given here for Samoa:
>
> > A question is about the genetic origin of this Compact Red Dwarf: is it a late progeny of Marechal hybrids? Or is it the progeny of a natural cross between Niu leka and a red dwarf such as Haari Papua ? We will do soon some DNA analysis to study this point.
>
> > Kind regards
>
> > Dr Roland Bourdeix
>
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coconut" group.
>
> > Having difficulty accessing the group website ? Get help by writing, in confidence, to coconu...@googlegroups.com
>
Hugh Harries
Have you read Roland's blog? You will see that he thinks that these coconuts should be used as seed or pollen parents for producing a new range of compact habit coconut palms. He does not say if they have a different taste but they will probably be most useful to producers of tender nuts and toddy tappers because their smaller size will make them easier to harvest
Hugh
Coconut Time Line
Proof Reading Service
Getting too many emails? The abridged email option (no more than 1 email per day) gives a summary of new activity each day; the digest email option (approximately 1 email per day) gives up to 25 full new messages bundled into a single email. For more options, go to http://groups.google.com/group/coconut/subscribe
Roland BOURDEIX
De : coc...@googlegroups.com [mailto:coc...@googlegroups.com] De la part de Hugh Harries
Envoyé : mardi 14 juin 2011 10:22
À : coc...@googlegroups.com
Objet : Re: [Coconut:4350] Re: The rarest coconut variety in French Polynesia: Compact Red Dwarf
Hugh Harries
Your pictures of the whole palm, showing stems and leaves, certainly do remind me of the Fiji-Malayan I knew in Jamaica many years ago. Perhaps if your family take another Caribbean holiday they could go to Jamaica and look for them?
You say that the compact dwarf in Tahiti will take 5 to 6 years before any will be available for export. This prompts me to ask if anything can be done to shorten that time?
According to a correspondent who attended the last international seminar in Kasaragod, India, in Oct. 2010 some experts there claimed that the Tissue Culture of the coconut palm is now achieved and technology is at hand. If that can be confirmed, and applied, it should be possible to improve the rate of multiplication.
However, my correspondent was also told that about 30 years ago, when TC in oil palm was achieved, that industry moved over to TC plantlets and then moved back to seedlings so that, today, only 1% of oil palm planting material is from TC and that is used only for parent stock multiplication. The reason given was that genetic aberration among the TC plantlets after they grew was the cause of TC being rejected commercially.
My contact asked me if TC propagated coconut would be any more likely to succeed?
Not, myself, having been involved with coconut TC since 2002, I wonder if someone who is up-to-date on the subject would like to give some advice?
Regards
Hugh
Harries
CRPaul
|
Hi All!
This front page photo I've just come across in one of our Sunday dailies... We're planning to make a visit to this homestead in the coming days. Will keep you posted.
Regards.
CRPaul, NARI
-------Original Message------- |
|
|
