Coconut trees grow slowly and are difficult to clone. Scientists a multiplied seedlings faster and conserved coconut genetic resources for the long term. This will help preserve coconut tree biodiversity and meet the increasing demand for coconuts and derived products.

The coconut is the sixth most cultivated fruit on earth and demand for it continues to rise. In recent years, coconut oil has seen an increase in consumer demand. Coconut water is also used as a natural alternative to sugary soft drinks. But the coconut tree, which mainly grows in coastal areas around the equator, faces many challenges: the Lethal Yellowing Disease, climate change, rising sea levels and outdated plantations. This is why researchers at KU Leuven and the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT have developed a method to multiply coconut trees faster and store them more efficiently in gene banks.

«Nobody thought we could do it»

Bart Panis of the Laboratory for Tropical Crop Improvement (KU Leuven) and the Alliance and PhD student Hannes Wilms drew their inspiration for this research from another fruit variety: the banana. From his work on banana plants, Panis suspected that a certain plant hormone could also be successful in coconut trees. «Coconut plants do not form side shoots. They put all their energy into one shoot that has to grow as fast and as tall as possible. This makes it very difficult to clone and store the plants,» Panis said. Not anymore.

For their research, the scientists first extracted the coconut tree embryo from the coconut. Then they applied the plant hormone to the meristem — or growing point — contained in the embryo. In this way, they succeeded in having the embryo form not only one shoot, but several side shoots. They managed, in turn, to split these shoot clusters and allow new side shoots to grow on them as well. Their findings were published on 15 September in Scientific Reports.

«Nobody thought we could do it. But we persevered with determination,» Panis said. «There are other methods of vegetatively propagating coconut trees but we are confident that this is the first method that is also time- and cost-efficient.» Thousands of new specimens of a single coconut plant can be obtained that share the mother plant’s exact same genetic profile. This offers enormous potential for coconut plantations worldwide.

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