The Trang Bang Seed Production Centre

The Trang Bang Seed Production Centre was created in 1986.

The Aromatic Green Dwarf Variety in the Seed Garden

Many seednuts and seedlings of Aromatic
are available for sale in Trang Bang

There are two different blocks.
Block 1: Latitude:   11.154703°; Longitude: 106.362496°
Block 2: Latitude:  11.145110° Longitude: 106.375196°

We made Polygones giving the areas:

Block 1: 98.6 ha estimated
Block 2: 8.97 ha estimated

View of block 1 and 2

Superposition with map

Here is the first map

Map of Trang bang seed garden block 1

The image adress to use on google earth is:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiakgkA7Sp6y-9zeXPQwWBkV3THVc163pM_QzkC8K-W1ADGgwLLc0XWnBGgHYbjJ9_UfAKVMIblnOjIhT7QnuOQ64GbUo-z4k6HU2_5Kvh5fkxY9uF_ribxHM-5VQ8lRGtMo1C6ky2Mn28/s1600/Trang+Bang+Block+1.jpg

The coconut varieties cultivated in the seed garden are mainly Aromatic Green Dwarf (imported long time ago from Thailand); Macapuno tall from embryo vitro culture; hybrids between Malayan Red and Yellow Dwarfs  and Makapuno Tall (pollen imported from the Philippines). During the period 2011-2015, about 160 000 seedlings were produced y IOOP seedgarden. Presently the cost of seednuts is partially supported by the government and they are sold to Vietnamese farmers at 2 USD per piece. Be care that the germination rate of the Aromatic Green Dwarf is generally lower than those of most other Dwarf coconut varieties, and that only 50 to 60% of the AROD seednuts will finally give good seedlings to be planted in the field.

A plot of Malayan Yellow Dwarf (MYD) is designed for production of DxT hybrids. The pollen used is from the Hijo Tall variety (imported from the Philippines). This seed garden is not surrounded by a sufficient zone serving as a pollen barrier; such a barrier could be made for instance with forest trees, rubber or other tree crops. So contamination may occurs, and part of the seed nuts released are probably crosses of the MYD with the Aromatic Green Dwarf.

Trang Bang coconut Seed garden

In some emasculated MYD inflorescences, we saw a strange accumulation of dried sap at the bottom of the female flowers. This could be due to insect attacks. The same was also observed on a Xiem Green Dwarf in an hotel of Ben tre city, so it seems that this pest is widely distributed.

A few MYD palms have a strange habit of the terminal parts of the upper leaves. Boron deficiency was suggested as the cause but, in the opinion of Dr R. Bourdeix, it is very rare to observe boron deficiency on adult palms.

The seed garden is far from the see and some problems of Chlorine deficiency may happen. It is advised to sometimes provide salt to palms to avoid this problem.

A MYD palm in the seed garden is branched (two heads). It is quite rare to observe this phenomenon in Dwarf types.

Coconut palms are inter cropped with commercial Jack fruit trees, and some large new plots are inter planted with dragon fruit and coconut palms. Some plots are planted with rubber trees. In the future, it could be useful to plant germplasm collection of jack fruit, Dragon fruits and other crops instead of commercial material only. This will need agreements between the various Vietnamese institutions presently working separately on different crops.

Aromatic coconut and Jack Fruit intercropped in Trang Bang

Coconut and Dragon fruit intercropped in Trang Bang