Mycorrhizal fungi have been employed within nursery production to significant effect in many nations producing Jatropha and Oil Palms. PlantWorks has targeted this crop globally under its plantation programme. The programme will seek to replicate results across different planting zones and to prove the cost benefits of commercial scale application. PlantWorks has designed tuned mix for this crop and will be developing this marketing during 2007 – 2008.
Known to be the most productive oil crop, a hectare of oil palm can produce 6 tons of crude palm oil (6.000 Liters of oil a hectare). This is 5 to 10 times more than the yield of any commercially grown oil crop. Palm oil is a form of edible vegetable oil obtained from the fruit of the palm tree. Previously the second-most widely produced edible oil, after soybean oil it may have now surpassed soybean oil as the most widely produced vegetable oil in the world.
The palm fruit is the source of both palm oil (extracted from palm fruit) and *palm kernel oil* (extracted from the fruit seeds).
PlantWorks has already shown statistically significant growth benefits from early treatment with mycorrhizal fungi adapted to dry soils and increases in nutrients like N, P and Cu in Jatropha plants in the first year. These trials are ongoing.
