VIRTUAL palms are helping researchers to boost the production of palm oil, which is vital to the economies of many tropical countries such as Malaysia and the Côte d'Ivoire.
The cyber-palms are created by a computer program written by Frederic Blaise and his team at CIRAD, an agricultural development agency in Montpellier, France. After "planting" they grow into full-sized trees in just a few hours. The results help farmers to optimise the spacing of real palms in plantations. "For example, we can determine at what age the roots of neighbouring trees begin to compete," says team member Christophe Jourdan.
The program also shows how farmers can make the most of fertilisers and pesticides. And botanists will be able to use it to study the effects of changing rainfall on growth.
Blaise spent 12 years refining his computer model, basing it on measurements of the development of real palms.
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