Purebred Aromatic Makapuno Coconut a New Alternative to Make a Leap in Income

Abstract

The demand of Makapuno coconut is higher than supply especially for dessert and healthy consumer. Commonly no purebred consisting with seed can germinate naturally. So Its embryo culture is only a methods for propagation. Macapuno coconuts exists naturally less than 0.3 percent making high demand and expensive fruit price. The increasing income of agriculture by leaps and bounds, creating a sustainable career are the last outcome. In the view of this, the aim on breeding and improving pure line to produce every nut of Makapuno in tree with over than 80 nut/tree/year and fruit size over than 1,500 grams was studied. Planting Aromatic Makapuno Coconut (NHK-C2) 121 trees in 2013 - 2022 at the Kanthuli Hybrid coconut orchard, Tha Chana district, Surat Thani province. It was found that pure line from embryo culture of the hybrid Aromatic Makapuno Coconut had survival rate about 86 percent. Yield of 8-9 year old trees was about 105 fruits/tree/year or 2,310 fruits/rai/year. The nut size was medium to large with average weight of 2,032 g/fruit. From all Macapuno fruits from the quality test of 1,500 fruits character with 14 percent of total trees existed soft texture and not fluffy, 66 percent medium fluffy and slightly condensed juice, and 20 percent high fluffy condensed juice. Consumer evaluation indicated that the texture of high fluffy and dense juice fresh was the highest preferred. The texture of medium fluffy and slightly dense juice revealed popular point in processing consumption. Nevertheless, the return of Macapuno Coconut was 155,607.50 baht/rai/year and BC ratio was 17.49.