CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY The African Oil Palm, Elaeis guineensi jacq (Jacquin, 1963), is placed in the Arecaceae family which contains about 225 genera with over 2600 species along with coconut and date palms cultivars. There are 3 naturally occurring forms of the oil palm fruit, termed dura, tenera and pisifera. The selection of dura female and pisifera male parents is carried out to obtain tenera offspring that produce large oil yield (Breure et al, 1986, Breure, 2003).