The peach palm (Bactris gasipaes Kunth) is a dual-purpose tropical tree cultivated for its edible nutritious fruit that provides pulp, flour, cooking oil, and oil meal, and for the production of heart-of-palm. It yields many crop residues and by-products: leaves, discarded fruits, seeds, oil cake (resulting from oil extraction), and heart-of-palm rinds. All these by-products and crop residues can be used for animal feeding.
Morphology
Bactris gasipaes is a tree that reaches 6-24 m in height and 12-26 cm in diametre. It is is typically multistemmed (1-13 cylindrical, straight stems) and caespitose, although single-stemmed trees occur. Most peach palms have numerous and sharp thorns, dark in colour and up to 14 cm long on the internodes. Peach palms produce suckers (1-12) arising from basal axilary buds. The suckers are managed for heart-of-palm production. The tree has an adventitious root system that forms a thick mat that may extend 4-5 m around the plant and can go as deep as 2 m in the soil. The stems have 10-30 petiolated, dropping, pinnate leaves, 1.8 to 4 m in length. The leaflets are numerous (up to 400) and may be armed on their midribs and margins. The leaflets are 58-115 cm long, 3-6 cm wide, and linear-lanceolate in shape. Peach palm inflorescences develop in the axil of the leaves. The spathe is 51-126 cm long, 6-18 cm wide, 2-15 mm thick and weighs 1-6 kg. The spathe’s internal surface is cream or light yellow. The peduncle is 10-17 cm long and rarely has spines. The monoecious female flowers develop irregularly among male flowers. Male flowers are cream-light yellow, small (2-6 mm long and 2-6 mm wide). Female flowers are usually yellow, or rarely green, larger than male flowers (3-13 mm long x 4-12 mm wide). The fruits develop on bunches that can be up to 20kg. The fruit is a drupe, usually shiny orange, red or yellow in colour and ovoid in shape, about 2-7 cm long x 2-8 cm wide and weighs 4-186 g. The seed is embedded in a dark endocarp centrally located in the flesh of the fruit (Mora-Urpi et al., 1997).
There are many varieties of Bactris gasipaes. Varieties that are producing fruits are generally thorny. Those whose fruits are for human consumption have a high oil content (10-20%) while those for animal fodder have high protein content (up to 14% in pulp and seeds) (Nogueira et al., 1995). In Brazilian fruit production, varieties with different periods of fruiting are cultivated so that the harvest period can be longer: East Amazonian varieties produce fruit from February to May and varieties from river Solimoes are producing from September to December. The varieties cultivated for heart-of-palm have been selected to be deprived of spines which makes their handling easier and safer (Nogueira et al., 1995).
Uses
Peach palm is cultivated for two main purposes, its pulpy fruit and the inner core of the tree, called heart-of-palm, which is a worldwide delicacy.
Fruit consumption has a long history. Pre-Columbian populations cooked the fruits, or let them ferment for several days before using them for beverage. Alcohol content depended on the duration of fermentation: the stronger beverage was used for ceremonies while the slightly fermented one was a daily drink. The fruits were sometimes smoked for better preservation (Mora-Urpi et al., 1997). Today, the fruit is still widely used in South America (Ugalde et al., 2002; Johnson, 2011). It can be cooked in salted water and consumed directly or made into flour for infant formula and baked goods. Fruits are cooked before consumption to alleviate the effect of trypsin inhibitors detrimental to digestion and of calcium oxalates which have burning effect in the mouth (Mora-Urpi et al., 1997; Nogueira et al., 1995). Peach palm fruits can be extracted for their edible (cooking) oil content (Blanco-Metzler et al., 1992a; Arkcoll et al., 1984). Immature inflorescences can be eaten like the fruits (Ecocrop, 2019).
While heart-of-palm can be obtained from different palm species, Bactris gasipaes is the main source of commercial heart-of-palm and its production is a major agro-industry in producing countries, often to be sold in canned form (Villachica, 1996).
In heart-of-palm plantations, discarded leaf and stem parts may be used as pulp for paper, organic fertilizer and animal fodder. The wood (chonta) was a traditional material used by Amerindians for bows, blowpipes, darts, spears, etc. It was used for tool handles but prone to split. The leaves were used to dye fibres in green colour (Mora-Urpi et al., 1997). The leaves can be used to make baskets (Carvajal et al., 2014). Some varieties of peach palm are also ornamentals (Carvajal et al., 2014).
Due to its multiple uses, the peach palm yields many products and by-products suitable for animal feeding:
- Fruits, whole or without the seeds (when the seeds have been removed for oil extraction), fresh, ensiled or dried. The dried and ground fruit or fruit pulp is often called peach palm meal.
- Rinds (sheaths) and other fibrous materials resulting from the extraction of heart-of-palm.
- Oil cake or meal resulting from the extraction of seed oil (Blanco-Metzler et al., 1992a; Arkcoll et al., 1984).
- Seeds can be a valuable feed for animals due to their composition (Zumbado et al., 1984).
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