Divisi
How to grow Oil palm
Elaeis guineensis · Arecaceae
Photo: Ei'eke · CC BY-SA 4.0
Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) is a single-stemmed palm from the forests of West and Central Africa, and the highest-yielding oil crop in the world. One palm carries separate male and female flower bunches at different times, and a small weevil — not the wind — carries the pollen between them. You grow it from tenera seedlings (a special cross that gives thin-shelled fruit packed with oil), plant them wide, and one palm then bears fresh fruit bunches every few weeks for decades. The orange-red fruit gives palm oil; the nut inside gives palm-kernel oil.
Kuuzy · CC BY-SA 4.0 
Marco Schmidt [1] · CC BY-SA 2.5
- Row spacing
- 900 cm
- Plant spacing in the row
- 900 cm
These are general figures for the crop, compiled from published agronomic references including FAO and CABI. The right choice for your field depends on your soil, rainfall and the yield you are aiming for.
Will oil palm actually do well on your land? Check your field against every crop in the catalogue — free, no signup. Run the free crop check →
Other names for Oil palm
oil palm · palmier à huile · dendezeiro · palmeira-de-dendê · mchikichi · ope
Working in buckets, bags or paces? The farming glossary turns the measures growers actually use into kilograms and hectares — what a 20 litre bucket of each crop really weighs, and how to size a field by walking it — alongside the Shona, Swahili, Ndebele and Yoruba words used in the field. Open the glossary →
Growing oil palm, stage by stage
Your oil palm from seed to standing crop — a year raising strong tenera seedlings, then planting them nine strides apart with a nitrogen-fixing cover crop, feeding heavy potassium, guarding the pollinating weevil, and rushing every ripe bunch to the mill within a day or two.
- Raise strong seedlings and clear the land
- Plant out and get the young palms growing
- Build the frame — potassium, pruning, and clean fronds
- Flowering — protect the pollinating weevil
- Fill the bunches and cull the killers
- Cut ripe bunches on time
- Rush the bunches to the mill
15 step-by-step tasks in the app
Every task for oil palm — what to do, when to do it and why it matters — with the amounts worked out for your own field, reminders as each one falls due, and warnings before extreme weather.
Pests and diseases that attack oil palm
6 more threats tracked in the app
Divisi tells you which of these is a risk on your oil palm right now, when to walk the field looking for it, and what to do the moment you find it.
Frequently asked questions
What spacing should I use for oil palm?
Space oil palm rows about 900 cm apart, with roughly 900 cm between plants within the row.
What pests and diseases attack oil palm?
The ones covered in this guide are Bagworms, Black pod, Butt rot. Each has its own page explaining how to identify, scout for and control it.
Grow oil palm with a plan, not a guess
Divisi turns this guide into a dated plan for your own field — what to do each week, reminders as tasks fall due, and warnings before extreme weather. Free for farmers, works offline.
Or check your field first