Tissue Culture of Oil Palm (Elaeis Guineensis Jacq): Techniques and Applications in Genetic Breeding

Abstract

Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) has become a leading plantation crop in Indonesia because it can provide employment opportunities and contribute to the country's foreign exchange earnings. The productivity of palm oil always experiences fluctuations. Over the past four years, the highest productivity of palm oil was in 2020, amounting to 48,296.30 tons/ha. Efforts to increase palm oil productivity need to be continuously pursued considering the high consumer demand for oil. One of the efforts to increase palm oil productivity is to cultivate superior seed varieties. The type of superior seedlings can be obtained from tissue culture. The research method used is a qualitative descriptive method with a literature study technique. The purpose of this research is to understand the tissue culture process, the inhibiting and supporting factors of tissue culture, the advantages and disadvantages of tissue culture, and the opportunities and challenges of palm oil tissue culture. The research results show that tissue culture affects palm oil production because the seedlings produced through tissue culture have superior traits, and the supporting factors of the tissue culture technique are the type of media and the addition of appropriate growth regulators (ZPT).