Field visit Malaysia and Indonesia for PalmStarch and SustainPalm project.
WFBR colleagues Ben van den Broek and Julien Voogt have travelled (16-19 April 2024) to Malaysia to work with our partner Profina in Johor to extract starch from old oil palm trunks to test different starch applications for in the PalmStarch project (https://www.wur.nl/nl/onderzoek-resultaten/kennisonline-onderzoeksprojecten-lnv/soorten-onderzoek/kennisonline/palmstarch.htm https://edepot.wur.nl/640436).
After travel to Medan (April 21 – 26) to work with IPB colleagues, led by Yessie Sari, on development of a quick and cheap method to determine starch and glucose content of oil palm trunk tops for the SustainPalm project. This should make the tapping of sap for sugar (gula) production from tumbled palm trunks more efficient. Research has shown that the starch content and thereby the gula yield of palm trunks can vary significantly. Tapping trunks that contain little starch will not yield much gula which makes gula tapping unprofitable. Identifying high starch containing trunks is necessary to make gula production economically feasible.
