Click on the pictures to enlarge them !
From the book:
Coconut. A guide to traditional and improved varieties.
By R. Bourdeix, J.L. Konan and Y.P. N’Cho
Editions Diversiflora, MontpellierSize: 21 x 27 cm - 104 pages
ENGLISH VERSION: ISBN 2-9525408-1-0
FRENCH VERSION: ISBN 2-9525408-0-2
Tagnanan Tall
The coconut plantations of the Philippines owe much to a royal edict from the court of Madrid which, in 1696, required each adult to plant at least 200 seedlings of coconut palms. The Tagnanan Estate farm, from which this variety came, lies Northeast of the Gulf of Davao, the capital of Mindanao Island. In the 1940s, this farm was a plantation of abaca, a plant similar to banana whose fibre is used to make ropes and fabrics. At the end of the war, the land was purchased and converted into a large coconut plantation, after a virus had decimated the abaca. Seednuts were taken from coconut palms on the seashore near to the plantation. According to some inhabitants, these parent palms already planted on the seashore were brought from Indonesia by an American settler. Later, the plantation, renamed Tagnanan, was divided up among more than 300 Philippino farmers.
The vertical growth of Tagnanan tall (TAGT) is variable but greater than that of African Tall palms. The fruits are rounded, often wider than they are long, and rich in water. With a thin husk and thick meat, fruit composition is excellent, even more so since parents where especially chosen by the scientists for that criterion. Data from the Tagnanan estate indicate a fruit weighing 1,929 g and containing 310 g of copra. In the best plots, the number of fruits produced reaches 94 per palm per year. The production continues to increase 15 years after planting, and reach high levels.
The seednuts harvested at the plantation have been planted at the Zamboanga Research Centre in the Philippines and exported to Côte d'Ivoire. At Zamboanga, the palms have given 68 fruits per year, with a weight of copra per fruit of 328 grams. In Africa, this variety has proved to perform much less well: the 400 palms planted in 1974 have produced an average of 46 fruits per adult palm per year. The second introduction was carried out by selecting parents with a high meat weight per fruit. The result of the selection process was disappointing: Thus, the meat weight effectively increased by around 7%, but production was only 22 fruits per palm per year. Selecting large fruits can indirectly cause a substantial reduction in the number of fruits. TAGT transmits good tolerance to nut fall and bud rot caused by fungi of the genus Phytophthora. After 15 years of studies at the Zamboanga Research Centre, nine locally produced coconut hybrids and one local Tall were selected from the collection and a pool of 67 hybrids established in eleven genetic trials by the Philippine Coconut Authority. The hybrid released to farmers under the commercial name PCA 15-2 is a cross between the Malayan Red Dwarf and TAGT. PCA 15-4 is another hybrid between the Catigan Green Dwarf and TAGT.TAGT is conserved in collections in the Philippines, Malaysia, Tanzania, Côte d'Ivoire, Vanuatu and Ghana. However, at the Tagnanan estate, the coconut palms were felled and replaced with bananas in the 1990s.
2 comments:
Very interesting article about the farm I grew up in! Serendipitous reading all of this, about the farm my father and before him, grandfather operated. In the mid 50's when I was born, some of my earliest memories was the pungent and earthly smell of the freshly cut ramie and abaca as they were being threshed! Combined with the screaming diesel belt driven threshing machines! Most of the info regarding the crossbreeding to get the TAGT variety was largely the work of my father and the French consultant that worked with him, Monsieur Jann Fremond. I wonder if you might have met him, as I also wonder where your resourcefulness may have brought you to find the info and jargon, that upon reading so pleasantly brought back the sound and cadence of my long deceased father's voice! He was passionate about coconuts and agriculture! Merci beaucoup, et salutations,
William Frederick Gemperle
William, I was very honoured to know your dad, Mr Fritz Gemperle and also Mons Yann Fremond and visited Tagnanan annually for several years in the late '70s to mid 80s, mainly to consult on the big thing then, planting cocoa under the coconuts. In 2010, when I heard about his passing, I wrote the following for your family but had no means to communicate this to you and your family at that time.
To the Family of Fritz Gemperle,
We received the news that Fritz has passed away with great sadness. May he rest in eternal peace.
We have known Fritz since the mid-1970s when there was great interest in coconut research and growing cocoa under coconuts. Fritz thought this would be beneficial for his renown Tagnanan coconut plantation and the extensive coconut growing areas in the Philippines. Through Mr Yann Fremond of the IRHO, we became associated with his efforts , visiting his and his friends’ coconut
areas with him annually till the mid-1980s when our research company, HRU Sdn Bhd was taken over and we could no longer visit.
Fritz was passionate about his efforts to improve the coconut plantations and took great interest in the management systems of the Malaysian plantation coconut and cocoa plantations and R&D activities of the crops. He joined the Incorporated Society of Planters, the professional body for planters in Malaysia and resigned only in 1991, and even explored the prospects of bringing in Malaysian expertise to form a Plantation Management Agency House for plantations in the Philippines which unfortunately did not materialise.
The civil unrest in the coconut growing areas then and impending Land Reform Act were serious impediments but Fritz maintained his efforts to spread the benefits of proper management and correct agronomic practices of the plantations and to interest other growers and planters in the
Philippines in them. We believe that Fritz’s efforts and beneficial interactions of planters and researchers from our countries will be one of his legacies.
Fritz’s main enduring legacy in the plantations probably will be his contributions to coconut breeding. The selections of Tagnanan Tall coconuts from his plantations thrive in coconut breeding plots all over the world and the Matag coconut hybrids, a cross between the Malaysian Dwarf coconut and Tagnanan Talls, are amongst the best and most productive coconut varieties available for planting. It is certainly the preferred coconut variety for planting in Malaysia now.
Above all, Fritz was a compassionate man and employer, always the perfect host and travelling companion, and a man of vision.
Post a Comment