Malaysian consortium says oil palm genome now mapped; jatropha in progress; new high-yield strains projected

In Malaysia, the Asiatic Centre for Genome Technology and Synthetic Genomics announced the completion of a draft assembly of the oil palm genome, and progress toward sequencing and analyzing the jatropha genome. The oil palm genome has 1.8 billion base pairs, while the jatropha genome has 500 million. The research is aimed at developing higher-yielding and disease resistant varietals.

Varietal research has focused on selective breeding, and jatropha has recently been receiving more attention in this area than oil palm, especially in South East Asia.

In the Philippines, tests by the Technological University of the Philippines and Chemrez Technologies have shown that jatropha biodiesel from PNOC Alternative Fuels meets both US and European standards.
Tests have now expanded the pool of jatropha hybrids to six candidates that meet EN 14214 (Europe) and ASTM D6751 (US). The seeds were provided by PNOC-Alternative Fuels Corporation, the biofuels division of state-owned oil company PNOC. TUP was responsible for oil extraction, while Chemrez performed the esterization process that converts the oil to biodiesel.

The Department of Agriculture recently said that as of last August, 38,000 hectares were being developed for biofuels, primarily in North Cotabato, South Cotabato, Sarangani and Sultan Kudarat provinces and Gen. Santos City. The Philippines have a B1 and E5 mandate scheduled to go into effect in 2009, rising to B2 and E10 in 2011. Philippine demand for biofuels is expected to rise to 187 million galls of ethanol and 54 gallons of biodiesel by 2011.

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