Breeding and Improvement of the Oil Palm Interspecific Hybrids via Molecular Cytogenetics

Breeding and improvement of the oil palm interspecific hybrids can take long time and involve multiple resources due to oil palm having a long breeding cycle, which needs large areas to be planted, intensive labour, and high maintenance cost. However, efforts can be optimized via molecular cytogenetics such as fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) method to locate DNA sequences of interest on chromosomes and genomic in situ hybridization (GISH) which is used to discriminate chromosomes of E. guineensis and E. oleifera by ascertaining the amount of oleifera genomes introgressed into O×G hybrids and their backcrosses and to look for introgressed chromosomes. The oil palm planted area worldwide is increasing continuously. Therefore, it is necessary to be prepared with a diversified planting material to avoid major economic loss if ever the disease arises in Malaysia.