Coconut varieties conserved in the National Genebank of Vietnam

Here is discussed the number and nature of coconut accessions presently conserved in the National Coconut Gene bank of Vietnam, located in Dong Go Experimental Research centre in Ben Tré province. Pictures of some of the varieties conserved in the Genebank can be seen here.

As of January 2016, only 31 coconut accessions are presently registered in the CGRD (International Coconut Genetic Resources Database) for the National Gene Bank of Vietnam in Dong Go. IOOP provided a new list showing that the data presently available in CGRD is incomplete and that the collecting work was continued. Now the collection gathers 51 accessions (so 64% more) as shown in Table 1.

Such a similar situation may be found in many other countries; So the global number of coconut accessions collected by COGENT member countries is probably strongly underestimated. This number is very probably at least 25% more that what is presently registered in the CGRD database.

Notes: 

• What is called in this list 'Guinea Green Dwarf', originally 'Equatorial Guinea Green Dwarf' was renamed by Côte d'Ivoire (collecting country) as 'Brazilian Green Dwarf population Equatorial Guinea', because there is historical évidence that this variety was introduced recently  from Brazil.
• What is called 'Ghana Yellow Dwarf' is this list was renamed as 'Malayan Yellow Dwarf population Ghana by Côte d'Ivoire (collecting country).
• 'King Coconut' status would need to be reviewed. This Sri Lanka variety was classified as 'Semi-Tall'.
• Table 2 (at the end of this post) gives the list of the 31 accessions presently registered in the CGRD database as of January 2016.

Table 1

List of the 51 coconut accessions
presently conserved by the National Coconut Gene Bank
of Vietnam at the Dong Go Research Centre
as of 28th, January 2016.

No.	Coconut accessions	Abbreviation	Group	Total palms	Planted year
1	Ghana Yellow Dwarf	GYD	Dwarf	30	1987
2	Guinea Green Dwarf	EGD	Dwarf	38	1987
3	Catigan Green Dwarf	CATD	Dwarf	35	1987
4	Malayan Yellow Dwarf	MYD	Dwarf	38	1987
5	Malayan Red Dwarf	MRD	Dwarf	67	1987
6	Malayan Green Dwarf	MGD	Dwarf	36	1987
7	Sri Lanka Yellow Dwarf	CYD	Dwarf	36	1987
8	Sri Lanka Red Dwarf	SLRD	Dwarf	5	1987
9	King Coconut Sri Lanka Red Dwarf	KSRD	Dwarf	4	2013
10	Western Africa Tall	WAT	Tall	33	1987
11	Bago Oshiro Tall	BAOT	Tall	27	1987
12	San Ramon Tall	SNRT	Tall	45	1987
B. Local varieties
13	Dau Tall - Giong Trom	DAUT01	Tall	31	1987
14	Ta Tall - Giong Trom	TAAT01	Tall	34	1987
15	Sap Tall - Cau Ke	MACT	Tall	29	1987
16	Green sweet husk Tall - Giong Trom	NGGT	Tall	5	1975
17	Yellow sweet husk Tall - Giong Trom	NGYT	Tall	3	1975
18	Lua Tall - HCMC	LUAT	Tall	31	1987
19	Brown Eo Dwarf - HCMC	EOBD	Dwarf	40	1987
20	Green Xiêm Dwarf - Giong Trom	EOBD	Dwarf	20	1987
21	Yellow Tam Quan Dwarf - My Tho	TYD	Dwarf	34	1987
22	Red Xiem Dwarf - Cai Lay	XFD	Dwarf	60	2002
23	Aromatic Green Dwarf - Hung Phong	AROD	Dwarf	15	2010
24	Soc Dwarf - Hung Phong	SOCD	Dwarf	20	2002
25	Xiêm Num - Giong Trom	XNGD	Dwarf	17	2012
26	Green Eo Dwarf - Giong Trom	EOGD	Dwarf	20	2012
27	Dark Green Xiêm Dwarf- Chau Thanh	XLD	Dwarf	6	2004
28	Red Xiêm Dwarf - Giong Trom	XRD	Dwarf	100	2012
29	Green Xiêm with pink husk – Ben Tre City	XTGD	Dwarf	2	1998
30	Ta Tall - Ben Luc	TAAT03	Tall	2	1998
31	Ta Tall - Tan Thoi	TAAT02	Tall	2	1998
32	Giấy Tall - Binh Thuan	GIAT	Tall	4	2001
33	Bung Tall - Binh Thuan	BUNT	Tall	4	2001
34	Chan Tall – Thanh Hoa	CHAT	Tall	2	2000
35	Tao Tall – Thanh Hoa	TAOT	Tall	2	2000
36	Khia Tall – Hue	TAAT14	Tall	3	2000
37	Ta Tall - Lang Co	TAAT15	Tall	27	2000
38	Ta Tall - Da Nang	TAAT16	Tall	5
39	Ta Tall - Quang Nam	TAAT17	Tall	37	2000
40	Ta Tall - Tam An	TAAT04	Tall	30	1997
41	Yellow Ta Tall - Tam An	TAAT06	Tall	27	1997
42	Green Ta Tall - Tam An	TAAT07	Tall	26	1997
43	Ta Tall - Phu Quoc	TAAT12	Tall	32	2010
44	Dau Tall - Cha Va	DAUT03	Tall	10	1998
45	Ta Tall - Giong Lon	TAAT11	Tall	10	1998
46	Dau Tall - Binh An	DAUT04	Tall	10	1998
47	Ta Tall - Ham Tien	TAAT08	Tall	10	1997
48	Ta Tall - Cat Trinh	TAAT09	Tall	10	1997
49	Dau Tall - Phu My	DAUT02	Tall	10	1997
50	Ta Tall - Tam Quan Nam	TAAT10	Tall	10	1997
51	Ta Tall - Phu Huu	TAAT05	Tall	10	1997
52	Dau Tall Binh An	DAUT04	Tall	10	1998

Table 2
List of the 31 coconut accessions registered 

in the Coconut Genetic Resources Database as of January 2016.

	Accession Number	International name	Population	Interna- tional abbreviation	Date of planting	Number of alive palms	Date of last counting
1	DGEC/I002	Bago-Oshiro Tall		BAOT	1987	44	1998
2	DGEC/I006	Catigan Green Dwarf		CATD	1987	43	1998
3	DGEC/L018	Dau Tall	Phu My	DAUT02	1997	36	1997
4	DGEC/L019	Dau Tall	Cha Va	DAUT03	1997	50	1997
5	DGEC/L020	Dau Tall	Binh An	DAUT04	1997	61	1997
6	DGEC/L004	Dau Tall	Giong Trom	DAUT01	1988	44	1988
7	DGEC/L006	Eo Brown Dwarf		EOD	1988	49	1998
8	DGEC/I005	Equatorial Guinea Green Dwarf		EGD	1987	60	1998
9	DGEC/I004	Ghana Yellow Dwarf		GYD	1987	60	1998
10	DGEC/L003	Lua Tall		LUAT	1988	44	1988
11	DGEC/L002	Macapuno Tall	Dua Sap	MACT02	1988	44	1988
12	DGEC/I008	Malayan Red Dwarf		MRD	1987	90	1998
13	DGEC/I007	Malayan Yellow Dwarf		MYD	1987	60	1998
14	DGEC/I003	San Ramon   Tall		SNRT	1987	44	1998
15	DGEC/I009	Sri Lanka Green Dwarf		PGD01	1987	60	1998
16	DGEC/I011	Sri Lanka Red Dwarf		SLRD01	1987	30	1998
17	DGEC/I010	Sri Lanka Yellow Dwarf		CYD01	1987	60	1998
18	DGEC/L010	Ta Tall	Tam An Dong Nai	TAAT04	1997	50	1997
19	DGEC/L011	Ta Tall	Phu Huu	TAAT05	1997	50	1997
20	DGEC/L012	Ta Tall	Tam An Vung Tau 1	TAAT06	1997	30	1997
21	DGEC/L013	Ta Tall	Tam An Vung Tau 2	TAAT07	1997	50	1997
22	DGEC/L014	Ta Tall	Ham Tien	TAAT08	1997	50	1997
23	DGEC/L015	Ta Tall	Cat Trinh	TAAT09	1997	30	1997
24	DGEC/L016	Ta Tall	Tam Quan Nam	TAAT10	1997	40	1997
25	DGEC/L017	Ta Tall	Giong Lon	TAAT11	1997	60	1997
26	DGEC/L008	Ta Tall	Tan Thoi	TAAT02	1990	60	1998
27	DGEC/L009	Ta Tall	Ben Luc	TAAT03	1990	44	1998
28	DGEC/L001	Ta Tall	Giong Trom	TAAT01	1992	44	1992
29	DGEC/L005	Tam Quan Yellow Dwarf		TYD	1988	49	1988
30	DGEC/I001	West African Tall		WAT	1987	44	1998
31	DGEC/L007	Xiem Green Dwarf		XGD	1988	49	1988

MYD was replanted in 2006, as rejuvenation, but up to now most of the Tall varieties were not rejuvenated except the San Ramon Tall from the Philippines. San Ramon Tall was rejuvenated in 2005 by controlled pollination with bagging.  No information yet about the number of female and male parent used for this rejuvenation.

Coconut varieties from farmer's fields in Vietnam

A very rare coconut with flat spikelet own by a farmer of Ben tre in Mekong Delta,
photographed in 1998 by R. Bourdeix

and....

... The same farmer (and coconut) photographed in 2016,
18 years later by R. Bourdeix - Nice to meet you again!

Back from the seed garden, we saw a farmer's plantation planted with a variety of Green Aromatic said to be imported from Thailand. This variety is not a dwarf type. On the stems, the distance between 11 leaf scars is about 45 to 50 cm, and the growth is comparable to those of King coconut variety in Sri Lanka. So all aromatic varieties are not Dwarf-types. Aromatic tender nuts are sold by farmer at farm border 2 pieces for 1 USD, when simple tender nuts from non-aromatic Green Dwarf or Tall are sold 4 pieces for 1 USD.

Aromatic Green, but not Dwarf type....

In the Ben Tré region, close to the site of the ancient "Coconut religion", we found a coconut variety which seems to be a Tall-type; it has special inflorescences characterized by very short spikelets in the distal part. The inflorescence has some similarities with those of the Tacunan Green Dwarf, a variety from the Philippines.

1. Inflorescence of the new Tall-type found in Ben Tré

2. Tacunan Green Dwarf from the Philippines

3. "Normal" shaped inflorescence of a Brazilian Green Dwarf 

New Tall-type found in Ben Tré

Yellow Makapuno Dwarf with thick meat photographed
by IOOP researcher in a farmer's field

Fruit of the progeny obtained from the Makapuno Yellow Dwarf
by embryoculture and planted in Trang Bang 

The IOOP in Vitro Culture Laboratory for producing Makapuno seedlings

On January 17th  2016, we visited the IOOP laboratory for production of Macapuno seedlings by in vitro culture.

In vitro culture is conducted in commercial glass bottles (Coca Cola or Pepsi) that are broken at the end of the process. This technique "made in Vietnam" is very cheap, as 25 bottles are bought for 1 USD. Ms Ngo indicates that the small size of the opening of the bottle is efficient to reduce contaminations when compared to other more expensive glass containers with wider opening.

Each Makapuno coconut is bought at 5 USD; two Makapuno nuts give one viable seedling from embryo culture (50% global survival rate). A Macapuno seedling from vitro culture is sold 35 USD to farmers. About 2000 seedlings are sold annually. The lab could produce more but the market is not enough, at least partially  because of the high price of the seedlings.

Makapuno in Vietnam - Dua Sap
See Publication in Cocoinfo international volume 20, 2, 2013.

As indicated long time ago by G.Santos from PCA, the pandan smell of Aromatic can also be detected at the nursery stage in the new young leaves and the roots. On adult palms, it is also possible to detect it on the young leaves, young roots (and, of course, the water of the fruit).

Coconut in situ conservation in Vietnam: a potential for developing new R&D projects

In Vietnam, about five thousand coconut palms have been identified by IOOP, around 1000 in each of 5 provinces: Ben Tre, Tien Giang; Tra Vinh, Binh Dinh and Phu Yen. About 40 to 50 farmers were selected by province. All palms have been geo referenced.

Satellite images illustrating the location of 3000 palms geo referenced in farmer's fields
from the whole country to the farms levels

Presently the data collected in farms is mainly the identity and localisation of the farmers, the variety and the individual level of production of the palms. For developing an in situ conservation approach, it could be very interesting to collect more data about these farmers. A first approach could be to use the International descriptors list conceived under the leadership of Bioversity International. A second approach could be to collect more data on the social habits of farmers and their traditional practices and knowledge, such as for example those developed in the framework of the REPROCROP project.

See the technical movie made from the training: how to transfer the field data to Google Earth Pro by using Qgis software.

As pointed out in a recent publication (1), many current coconut research and development programmes are impacting conservation beyond genebanks and farmer’s knowledge on the reproductive biology of their crops. Most of these programmes do not mention it explicitly. Although not yet mentioned, the R&D actions undertaken by IOOP has an implicit but obvious positive effect on the sustainability of coconut in situ conservation in Vietnam. So why not to mention it and to develop it accordingly? Thus, including the conservation of genetic resources as one of the explicit objectives of such programmes will increase the commitment of both the scientific community and decision makers, and will result in a win-win situation.

Seednuts are sold from farmers to farmers, and sometimes bought by the institute or by the governments of the provinces and then redistributed to other farmers. It was not yet estimated how many seednuts were sold from farmers to farmers and to local Governments.

(1) Bourdeix R., Perera L., Rivera R.L., Saena-Tuia V and Masumbuko L. 2016. Global coconut communities - status and strategies in in situ diversity management and utilization. In: Coconut: Global status and perspectives. Central Plantation Crop Research Institute, Kasaragod, India. Submitted.

How to turn a coconut farmer's field into a polyvalent seed garden producing Hybrid, Tall and Dwarf varieties

The third recommendation endorsed during the 2012 COGENT Steering Committee Meeting was to encourage local stakeholders (men and women farmers, private enterprise, NGOs and CBOs) to become more involved in supplying quality planting material, and to teach farmers and other stakeholders how to autonomously produce quality seedlings of hybrids and other varieties, using the Polymotu concept or any other adopted method (Bourdeix and Allou, 2012a).

Here is a simple method to turn part of a farmer's field into a seed garden designed for producing both Hybrid, Tall and Dwarf seedlings. This method is to be published soon in a CPCRI book (Bourdeix R.,  Perera L., Rivera R.L., Saena-Tuia V and Masumbuko L. 2016. Global coconut communities - status and strategies in in situ diversity management and utilization. In: Coconut – global status and perspectives. Central Plantation Crop Research Institute, Kasaragod, India. Submitted.)

Figure 1. Example of a part of a farmer's field to be turn into a Polyvalent Seed Garden

The following steps are proposed:

1) At the beginning, the field is planted with Brown, Green-Brown and Green palms from a traditional Tall variety.

2) Cut all brown and green-brown colored palms and keep only the green-colored ones.

3) Plant Malayan Red Dwarf and Green Tall varieties to replace the removed Talls. Start to collect data of the remaining old green Talls, for about two years.

4) Two years later, when the first dwarfs will be close to flowering, and according to the result of this characterization, remove at least half of the green-colored Talls and keep only the best. This will improve the value of both Tall and hybrid seednuts.

5) Plant again Red Dwarfs and/or selected Green Talls on the available space.

Steps 1 and 2 can be conducted either successively or either in a more progressive way: for economic reasons, it could be envisioned to plant first the Dwarfs under the existing Talls, and to remove the brown and green-brown Talls only one or two year later, when the Dwarf will be close to flowering.

This design was presented by using as parent the Malayan Red Dwarf which is a strongly autogamous variety. For producing hybrids seednuts, this dwarf variety needs to be emasculated. Other Red Dwarf varieties could also be used instead of the Malayan. Some varieties especially interesting are the Allogamous Compact Red Dwarf recently discovered in French Polynesia and Fiji. By using such allogamous Dwarf, it could be expected to produce up to 50% hybrid seednuts without making any emasculation; such an economy of labour and manpower could allow to strongly reduce the cost of hybrid coconut seednuts.

Remote sensing techniques applied to the coconut palm - an overview

Most of the information was obtained from Dr Gaëlle Viennois, from Join Research Unit AMAP, Cirad.

Some Qgis Toolbox allows to conduct remote sensing analysis, but they are not often used in CIRAD. At Cirad, researchers are mainly using commercial (and quite expensive) dedicated software, that works well on recent laptops with sufficient RAM (8 gigabytes), and quite large harddisk: each satellite image generally need 2-3 gigabytes. The software are:

ENVI Excellis - About 4000 USD once (windows 32 ou 64) mobile computer. one image 2-3 gigas.
E-cognition (trimble) - Payant classification d'objet

Multispectral images are needed to identify and count coconut palms. To get the satellite images:

Spot isis: one image costs about 100 USD: medium quality, multispectral image with resolution 6m ; panchromatic image with resolution 2m.

E-geos image: good quality, multispectral image with resolution 2m ; panchromatic 50 cm. Need to buy a minimum of 100 km2; when the image is already available, it cost 20-25 USD per km2; when the image needs to be acquired, the price is approximative doubled.

Dedicated Training is organized at "Maison de la Téledétection" Montpellier France.

Documents to download:

Komba Mayossa, P. C., Coppens d’Eeckenbrugge, G., Borne, F., Gadal, S., & Viennois, G. Developing a method to map coconut agrosystems from high-resolution satellite images.

Teina, R. (2009). Caractérisation de la cocoteraie des Tuamotu à partir d'images satellites à très haute résolution spatiale (Doctoral dissertation, Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris VI).

Teina, R., Béréziat, D., Stoll, B., & Chabrier, S. (2008, July). Toward a global Tuamotu archipelago coconut trees sensing using high resolution optical data. In Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 2008. IGARSS 2008. IEEE International (Vol. 2, pp. II-797). IEEE.