26 Apr Ornamental foliage plants Ideal intercrops for adult oil palm plantations
सजावटी पत्तेदार पौधे वयस्क तेल ताड़ के बागानों के लिए आदर्श अंत: फसलें Ornamental plants grown for foliage or leaves are called cut foliage plants or greens. Background and shape of the flower arrangements are mainly decided by foliage. Most of the foliage plants are perennial in nature, common ornamental garden/ indoor plants, shade loving and shade tolerant and they can up well under dense shady environments. Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) is the fasting growing plantation cum oil seed crop which is grown to extent of 4.00lakh ha in the country. It is a perennial crop with a productive life of 30 years and yields about 5 tonnes palm oil per hectare. Grown up oil palm utilizes only 40% area for its growth and production and rest of the area (60%) remains vacant which offers the scope for efficient use of natural resources like space, sun light and aerial environment through inter cropping. However, the major constraint in grown up oil palm plantation is incidence of poor sun light which hardly ranges from18-25% which offers the scope for shade loving crops to some extent. Studies at ICAR-Indian Institute of Oil Palm Research, Pedavegi, Andhra Pradesh revealed that foliage plants like fish tail fern, asparagus, fox tail fern, ti plant, philodendron, dracaena, dumb...