Peach palm - World Agroforestry Centre

Promoting the conservation and use of underutilized and neglected crops. 20. 53
narrow diameter and is called ‘extra fine’. The caulinar heart commands a much
lower price, and is presented in different sizes and shapes, but provides the
industry with larger earnings because it comes with the free material they
receive from the farmers.
In Brazil, there is a demand for three heart-of-palm dimensions (C.R. Clement,
1997, pers. observ.): thin (1.5-2.5 cm) hearts to be canned for the internal and export
markets; medium (2-4 cm) hearts for the fresh market in Brazil; thick (3-6 cm) hearts
for the Brazilian churrascaria market (restaurants that specialize in barbecued meat
with thick hearts-of-palm as garnish).
For hearts-of-palm with 2-3 cm diameter, offshoots are harvested when they
attain diameters of >9 cm, measured at 20-30 cm above the ground. Offshoot
diameter and other morphological characteristics are correlated with heart-ofpalm
yield, but in practice only diameter is measured to determine if the offshoot
is ready for harvest because there is a good correlation between yield and diameter
under normal nutritional conditions.
When offshoots are ready for harvest, they are cut and the outer fibrous leaf
sheaths are removed. Two non-commercial leaf sheaths, surrounding the heart-ofpalm,
are normally left to protect it from rapid moisture loss and mechanical damage
during transport. Ideally the heart-of-palm should be transported to the processing
plant on the day of harvest to minimize moisture loss (Fig. 9). If transport delays are
anticipated, more leaf sheaths should be left surrounding the heart-of-palm, a
paraffin/beeswax mixture should be applied to the cut ends, and they should be
stored in a shady place (Villachica 1996). These post-harvest treatments will normally
conserve fresh heart-of-palm for 4 days without significant moisture loss or fungal
infection.
Basic production parameters in one region may serve as a reference for
comparing production in other regions, and offer targets for agronomic and genetic
improvement research programmes. Production parameters for heart-of-palm
from the Utilis landrace in Costa Rica are given below (Mora-Urpí, unpublished
data from 1995, 5000 plants/ha).
• Time from plantation establishment to first harvest of all plants (9 cm offshoot
diameter) is 18 months.
• Number of harvested offshoots is 8000/ha in the first year of production (12-
24 months), and 10 000/ha each year thereafter.
• Field-harvested shoots contain 70% leaf sheaths and 30% ‘quality’ and
‘caulinar’ heart-of-palm.
• Average yield of ‘quality’ heart-of-palm after processing is 1.35 t/ha,
beginning in the second year of production (10 000 harvested offshoots/ha,
each yielding 0.135 kg of ‘quality’ and 0.05 kg of ‘caulinar’ heart-of-palm).
• Number of heart sections per ‘quality’ heart-of-palm is 4.5 after processing
(each is 9 cm long).
• Number of stems (9 cm diameter) required for 1 ‘equivalent box’ is 40. In Costa
Rica, industrial plants use a unit called the ‘equivalent box’, which equals 24 halfliter
cans containing a total of 5.2 kg of processed heart-of-palm.