TRUNK AND BLOSSOM PALMYRA PALM MANAGEMENT FOR FRESH JUICE PRODUCTION

A study on palmyra trunk and blossom management for fresh juice production was carried out at farmer fields in Phitsanulok and Nakhon Sawan provinces during 2008 and 2009. The experiment was tried in RCB, with 4 replications and 5 treatments. The treatments were pure water soaking, soaking in mud solution, encapsulation in mud, warm water soaking and non-soaking for a day. All treatments were applied after the trunk and blossom of the palm were properly squeezed or massaged with the wood for 2 to 3 days. Result showed that, all the treatments were significantly different. Palmyra trunk soaked with pure water gave the highest fresh juice as 126 L/trunk whereas encapsulation in the mud treatment showed as low as 18.8 L/trunk. Conversely, for palmyra blossom, encapsulating in mud gave highest fresh juice as 120 L/blossom while in the warm water soaking treatment they produced the lowest as 5.1 L/blossom.