Saturday

New tool for calculating the number of coconut seednuts needed at the national level

This new tool was conceived by Roland Bourdeix and Vijendra Kumar on December 2017 in Fiji. It help to calculate the number of seednuts needed for reaching an objective of production at national or even regional levels. This is an Excel file that is available on demand. Users have to choose a series of parameter corresponding to the status of coconut plantations in their zones, and according to their objectives in therms of production of fruits. Then graphics and table update automatically.

We provide here under two examples.

In the first one, a country plans to replant yearly 1000 hectares of old senile coconut plantations, and to create 500 hectares of new coconut plantations. The total number of seednuts needed is 330 000. In this case, the number of senile palms decreases from 30 to 18%, but the total number of palms and the yearly production continue to decrease.

In the second example, a country plans to replant yearly 1200 hectares of old senile coconut plantations, and to create 1000 hectares of new coconut plantations. The total number of seednuts needed is 484 000. In this case, the number of senile palms decreases from 30 to 11%, and the total number of palms and the yearly production increases.

Note: do not use this model with very high unrealistic replanting rates, as it is not adapted and some negative values could appear for the number of senile palms. Be care also one thing is to produce and distribute seednuts or seedlings, another one for this material to be really planted. In some development programmes conducted in Pacific countries it is estimated that no more than 40% of the seednuts given to farmers turned to living palms in the fields.

Example 1



Example 2
Method of calculation