A review of the importance of spines for pejibaye heart-of-palm production

Abstract

Commercial plantations of pejibaye (Bactris gasipaes Kunth, Palmae) are expanding in tropical America to supply the heart-of-palm market. The heart-of-palm is a gourmet vegetable composed of the tender unexpanded leaves in the palm's crown. Both spiny and spineless germplasm is available to growers, but there are no clear data on the superiority of either. Comparisons made among populations, among progenies within populations or among alleles within progenies are of interest for different reasons. In Hawaii, the Yurimaguas population (93% spineless; Pampa Hermosa landrace) is superior in heart-of-palm weight at one site and the Benjamin Constant (BC) population (79% spineless; Putumayo landrace) at another. Within the BC population there is a tendency for spineless plants to be superior in heart weight at one site and spiny to be superior at another. Within BC progenies, spineless plants often have more off-shoots at both sites, but superiority of spineless or spiny in terms of relative growth rates, heart weight and total edible weight depends upon location and seldom exceeds 10%. Although these yield components have low heritabilities there is variation amenable to selection, so that selecting within spineless germplasm should provide gains similar to those for spiny germplasm. Which is better is not a biological question but must be answered based upon comparative costs (management of spiny plants costs marginally to much more) and availability of germplasm at a given location.