AAR Seedling, 25 Months after field planting

1. A modern oil palm plantation needs a grower who has learned how to cultivate oil palms.

   Growing selected oil palms is not just a matter of picking the fruit; it is a modern crop.
   The grower must learn how to do his work well.
   The grower should ask for advice, so that he learns to do better and better.

   The grower must think about his work and plan it, so that he can always do his work at the right time.
   Selected oil palms give the grower much more work than the natural trees, but they yield much more.

   An oil palm grower is a modern farmer.
   With the money he earns he can buy for his family what they need, and he can modernize his farm.

BEFORE STARTING THINK THINGS OVER CAREFULLY

An oil palm begins to produce 3 or 4 years after it has been planted.
During that time the grower must spend money and work hard, without harvesting any fruit or earning any money.

2. To make a modern oil palm plantation takes money.

   Most often you will have to pay workmen for clearing the site of the plantation and removing tree stumps.

   Then you must buy seedlings and fertilizers.
   Unless you apply fertilizers to the oil palms when they are still young, they will not grow well and you will have to wait a longer time before you can begin to harvest.

   You may also have to pay workers to help you look after the young plantation. Weeds must not be allowed to get in the way of the oil palms, and the trees must be protected from damage by rats and agoutis.

   All this work takes a lot of time, and this means that you may not have enough time to look after large fields of food crops.
   You may have to buy food for your family.
   Before you start an oil palm plantation, you must calculate carefully whether you will be able to pay all these expenses.

3. To grow oil palms takes a lot of work.

   
   

My 25 months AAR seedling growing quite well and started to bare fruit.