John Myers Jr., Agriculture Coordinator
THE MALAYSIAN government is to assist the local coconut industry in combating the deadly lethal yellowing disease which has caused widespread destruction of large acreages of coconut trees on the island.
This was disclosed on Tuesday by Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller at a press conference held at Jamaica House to announce details of Malaysia's Prime Minister Dato' Seri Badawi's official two-day visit to the island. Mr. Badawi arrived in the island on Tuesday.
REHABILITATION
According to Prime Minister Simpson Miller, both countries will collaborate "to combat the lethal yellowing disease affecting the Jamaican coconut industry." She said the collaboration will "involve the procurement of germ plasma from Malaysia for the replanting of trees and rehabilitation of the industry."
NEW VARIETIES
Dr. Richard Jones, chairman of the Coconut Industry Board (CIB) welcomed the assistance from the Malaysian government. "It is something that we sought, it is something that we asked for and desperately need," he said yesterday. Dr. Jones explained that "we need new varieties to see if we can find the resistant variety to lethal yellowing, which is killing the trees and crippling our industry."
Basil Been, director of research at the CIB, explained that one of the varieties which has shown resistance to lethal yellowing is the Maypan Dwarf, which came from Malaysia. He emphasised that an important measure to combating the disease is to introduce as many new varieties as possible for screening to determine which varieties are able to withstand the effects.
The Coconut Industry Board, in its report on the coconut industry for 2005, emphasised that "lethal yellowing continued to devastate coconut farms, including one of the main field genebanks, in the main coconut growing region of the northeast (section of the island)."
INCREASED URGENCY
As a result, it said "there is an increasing urgency to find a way of coping with the disease especially since the varieties being grown locally have not been showing good resistance to it since 1997." The CIB said varieties imported from Mexico and the Ivory Coast continued to succumb to the disease. The Board also pointed out that the Panama Tall, which supplies pollen for producing the Maypan hybrid variety, is being wiped out by the disease, as well as, its main pollen source at the Green Castle Estate and genebank in Fair Prospect. However, the variety imported from Brazil has so far been showing resistance in the areas most affected by the disease, the Coconut Board said in the report.
At the same time, the replanting programme initiated to sustain the number of coconut trees on the island has not been successful due what the Coconut Board described as "farmers' reluctance to plant the Malayan Dwarf and the Maypan hybrid."
The Coconut Industry Board will be having its annual general meeting on Saturday at the Coke Hall, East Parade in downtown, Kingston at 10:00 a.m.
