Hugh Harries - Tropical Tree Crops Agronomist
THAILAND
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31st Asian & Pacific Coconut Community Cocotech Meeting, Chieng Mai
Harries, H.C. (1994) A challenge to the APCC: make the coconut competitive in the 21st century. In: B.B. Pangahas (ed) Coconut Industry into the 21st century. Proc. XXXI COCOTECH Meeting, July 1994, Chieng Mai, Thailand. Asian & Pacific Coconut Community, Jakarta.
26th Asian & Pacific Coconut Community Cocotech Meeting, Bangkok.
Harries, H.C. (1989) Overcoming constraints to the practical use of clonal coconuts. In: Sumit de Silva (ed) Coconut Production and Productivity. APCC 25th COCOTECH Meeting, Bangkok.
ODA Coconut Development Project
Team Leader/Coconut Breeder, Technical Cooperation Officer, UK Overseas Development Administration, assigned to the Department of Agriculture, Thailand to develop hybrid coconuts, to generate a long-term breeding programme, to test intercrops, to establish trials and to improve cultural methods.
COCONUT GENETIC RESOURCES OF THAILAND.
Harries, H.C., Thirakul, A. & Rattanapruk, V. (1982)
Thai. J. Agric. Sci. 15 (2), 141-156.
Extract
Unlike most other coconut growing countries in Asia and the Pacific, Thailand has no history of colonially dominated plantation development Coconuts are grown on small farms, the crop enters the local market to be consumed domestically and small-sized fruit or seasonal gluts only are converted to copra, none of which is exported. The coconut genetic resources of the country are under-exploited and advances in propagating hybrid coconuts makes it important to evaluate the existing coconut populations before they are replanted.
The geographical isolation of the coconuts on the two coasts of peninsular Thailand, though not so extremely marked as on the Central American isthmus, is a good example, in an accessible situation of the sort of isolation existing over great distances in the Pacific Ocean and between large and small islands of the Indonesian and Philippine archipelagos.
The Maphrao Yai/Klang group of varieties can be compared to other populations that show domestic type characteristics, for example the Malayan Tall, with which it probably shares a common ancestry, and other common types in Southeast Asia. The large-fruited form, the Ka-lok, may be comparable to other notably large forms such as San Ramon and Tagnanan in the Philippines, Bali and Menado types in Indonesia, and the Rennell in the Solomon Islands and the Panama Tall on the Pacific coast of south and central America.
The Pak Chok can be compared with other populations that have wild type characteristics, for instance the Sri Lanka, Indian, Mozambique, West African and Caribbean coconut populations. It is exposed to introgression in Thailand where domestic types are most common but it is still distinct. Although probably more common on the Andaman Sea coast of Thailand and Burma, where there are very many islands, its presence on the Gulf coast is confirmed by drift coconuts found on beaches. These may have floated from small islands in the Gulf or coral atolls in the China Sea and it may be found in East Malaysia, Indonesia and perhaps the Philippines. Many Pacific islands have this type of coconut.