Photosynthetic-related properties of oil palm leaves treated with different amount of fertilizer

Abstract

Oil palm trees need suitableamountof fertilizerforimprovement of growth and productivity. Different oil palm planting materials would require different amount of nitrogen-potassium (NK) fertilizer. Nitrogen promotesgrowth of plant leaves while potassium helpsoverall function of oil palm including formation of sugar and starch. This study focused on the determination of photosynthetic-related properties including the amount of soluble sugar, starch and chlorophyll from six planting materials of oil palmindicated as A,B,C,D,E and F. Palms were supplementedwith different levels of fertilizer; T1for control, T2 and T3.In this study, we observed that the applicationof the fertilizer at T2 and T3 levels forplantingmaterialsA, B, and Cresulted inthe increasedamount of total soluble sugarcompared to control, T1. The total starch content and the total chlorophyllcontent fluctuated between treatments and types of planting materials, hence no clear trend was observed. These results could be usedto estimate the behaviour or biochemical responsesof oil palm from different planting materials towards different levelsof NK fertilizer.