The redoutable Coconut Google Group has a great story from Roland Bourdeix about the Philippines’ makapuno coconut variety, ((Now, you may have to join the Google Group to read Roland’s post. But that would be no bad thing.)) drawing from an article in the Philippine Star. Makapuno nuts have a delicious and very valuable jelly instead of water, but can’t germinate. A makapuno palm will only have 15-20% or so makapuno fruits. The only way to get makapuno nuts is to plant a normal coconut from a palm with makapuno fruits and harvest that precious 15-20%. But that meets only 3% of demand. So in the 1960s Dr Emerita de Guzman came up with a way of rescuing makapuno embryos in tissue culture. When she planted the resulting seedlings, all the coconuts were makapuno. There are now nine labs in the Philippines churning out makapuno seedlings, but they’re expensive and few farmers can afford to buy them. I’ll let Roland tell the rest of the story, but here’s a little spoiler to whet your appetite: tissue culture makapuno palms were planted on a kind of artificial island in Thailand and something wonderful happened there…
Luigi, your blogsters do not HAVE to join the Google Coconut Group to read Roland’s post. Anybody can view group content.
“Content” includes discussions between 53 of the 350 members(almost 1400 messages on 485 topics in 25 months or about 2 emails a day), pages by the Asian and Pacific Coconut Community (APCC) and COGENT, special interests like Poverty Reduction or Lethal yellowing, Internet Interest Groups on Carbon Sequestration & Trading and Research for Development, citations for 2007 and a bibliographic time line, and proposals for a “Coconet” sponsored Education Program and (coming soon) for a Global Coconut Research Initiative (in the form of a virtual research institute).
Only members can send or receive messages but anyone can join by going to http://groups.google.com/group/coconut/subscribe (and only messages from new members are moderated).
Dear Makapuno enthusiast,
I have been an avid supporter of the Philippine Makapuno Industry. With this, I set-up a small Makapuno Embryo Culture Laboratory. I am now producing homozygous and self-pollinating makapuno hybrids. To those interested, you may email me.
jun ayensa
Yes, I am interested with Makapuno seedlings. How I may get them?
Thanks,
Roman de Guzman
Dear Roman de Guzman
I did some searching on the internet for you, and it appears that Jun Ayensa’s web site does not work. At other places I found messages from him offering makapuno, with these contact details:
Jun Ayensa
MicroPlant R&D Inc.
microplant_rd@yahoo.com
09205397762 or 09156296264
Another web site you might like to try is PhilHybrid.
dear roman,
may we communicate through email? my email ad is microplant_rd@yahoo.com. my website is still under repair right now. you may also contact me at my mobile phone (0915-629-6264). thank you.
jun ayensa
Hi Jun,
I stumbled on this chat by looking for my name on google.
i have forgotten about this.
Yes, we can communicate thru email.
Thanks,
Roman