Content
The fruits of the oil palm have an oil content of up to 50%
The plant profile of the oil palm
Closely related to the coconut palm, the oil palm is the world's most productive oil plant. The oil of the tropical crop is used both in the food and in the technical industry and for the production of bioenergy.
Appearance
The wild form of the oil palm is about 30 meters high and can be up to 200 years old. Cultivated on plantations, the growth form was changed by breeding, so that the palm remains a little smaller.
tribe
This will develop like many palm species only after a few years, when the thickness growth is completed. He is very structured.
leaves
The deeply feathered leaves grow up to seven meters long. They remain on the palm for about two years, then dry and fall off. At the leaf base remains a significant scar, in which plant remains and substances in the air accumulate. Typical of the oil palm is that settlers settle here.
blossoms
The oil palm forms about the third year of life large inflorescences, consisting of a stable inflorescence axis with many lateral axes. The inflorescence carries either male or female flowers, rarely occur in young palms mixed inflorescences. Female flowers are visible on the thorny bracts, which are also preserved at the ripe fruit stand.
fruit
Six to nine months after pollination, the drupes are ripe. They are three to six inches long, two to four inches wide and weigh about twenty grams. The thinner outer shell surrounds the yellow to reddish, fibrous flesh, which consists of about 50 percent oil. This is formed only in the last month of ripening, the initially hard fruits are softened by it. Harvested when the first fruits from the fruit dressing peel off because then the oil content is the highest.
This happens depending on the size of the tree with long bamboo poles, at the end of a kind of sharp sickle is attached. Partly, the workers climb the palms and sever the heavy fruit stands with knives at a dizzy height. From the pulp is subsequently palm oil, recovered from the palm seeds palm kernel oil
Tips
Since it can be produced so cheaply, palm oil is in the meantime in many products which we use daily. Since the large oil plantations are not completely uncontroversial for environmental reasons, it makes sense to use only products that contain certified palm oil.