ESTIMATING NUMBERS OF OIL PALM (Elaeis guineensis) POLLEN GRAINS USING IMAGE ANALYSIS AND PROCESSING

Abstract

Elaeidobius kamerunicus is the most important oil palm pollinator in Indonesia and ESTIMATING NUMBERS OF OIL PALM (Elaeis guineensis) POLLEN GRAINS USING IMAGE ANALYSIS AND PROCESSING INTRODUCTIONOne of the major concerns in oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) plantation is poor fruit set due to limited pollination. Therefore, in 1981, the oil palm weevil (Elaeidobius kamerunicus) was introduced to address this problem. Subsequently, there has been many reports corroborated that the insect significantly improved fruit set (Syed et al., 1982;Harun and Noor, 2002). This success story has stimulated many studies on the field of pollination biology of oil palm (Sipayung and Lubis, 1987;Dhileepan, 1994;Poinar et al., 2002;Eardley et al., 2006; Purba et al., 2012). Nevertheless, most of these studies only focused on the correlation between the presence of E. kamerunicus and oil palm yield, while the mechanism and the main role of this weevil on pollen transfer remain unclear. For this, we need such a method which can provide rapid, yet precise estimation of the numbers of pollen produced by the plant and how it is distributed by E. kamerunicus. Quantification of pollen would provide critical information to understand of the male reproductive function (Kearns and Inouye, 1993), fitness of different plant morphs (Harder and Barrett, 1993), and crucial to understand the number of pollen grains that is removed and carried by pollinators (Thomson and Goodell, 2001;Adler and Irwin, 2006). Study on pollen deposition rate by pollinators requires two crucial steps: (1) pollen extraction from pollinator's body and (2) pollen counting from the obtained samples. Pollen separation techniques have been developed extensively by applying several types of solvent, gel, and detergent DOI: https://doi.org/10.21894/jopr.2017DOI: https://doi.org/10.21894/jopr. .2903 ESTIMATING NUMBERS OF OIL PALM (Elaeis guineensis) POLLEN GRAINS USING IMAGE ANALYSIS AND PROCESSING AGUS

Standardization of cytological behavior of pollens in sorghum by Image analysis

“…Compared with previous image analysis software packages, ImageJ is free and provides tools necessary to manage the process and analyze pollen grains’ images with ease. Although other image analysis programs can be similarly effective, they are often not freely available and require intimate knowledge of specialized software (Mudd and Arathi 2012; Chinchilla-Lopez and Richardson 1991; Choudhary 2016; Fonseca et al 2002; Ortega et al 2011; Permana et al 2017). The microscopic images of pollen were captured with Gionee S6s camera lens (13 MP magnification).…”

Assessment on Pollen Carrying Capacity and Pollen Viability of Elaeidobius kamerunicus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae)

“…For female flowers, the weevils were collected by wrapping full anthesis flowers with muslin cloth and transporting them back to the laboratory. The PCC and PV were determined using the pollen counting method by Permana et al (2017). All weevils were transferred into a microcentrifuge tube (1.5 ml size) and washed using 200 µl KOH 10% (w/v).…”

Pollen load and distribution on the body of Elaeidobius kamerunicus Faust. (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) within oil palm plantations

“…Researchers followed the pollen counting method used by (Permana et al 2017). Each weevil was placed into a microtube (1.5 ml size) and washed using 100 µl KOH 10% (w/v) as a solvent to disperse pollen and create a bonding effect between the pollen and solvent.…”

“…kamerunicus body was examined in reference to 5 different parts: the head, thorax, abdomen, elytra, and legs. We measured the pollen distribution from each part for males and females from male flowers, using the pollen counting method by Permana et al (2017).…”