Mystery Solved Genetics

Bad Karma can ruin palm oil crops

Cloned trees that lack DNA methylation produce poor fruit

Oil palm plantation

PALM PRESSER  Otherwise identical cloned oil palms (a plantation shown) can develop a flaw that ruins crops. Scientists have discovered the source of the flaw.

Meilina Ong-Abdullah/MPOB

By Tina Hesman Saey

- More than 2 years ago

Palm oil producers thought they had licked shortages of edible oil and biofuel in the 1980s, when they learned to make genetically identical copies of high oil-yielding palms.