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Literature Review Special Issue Palm Oil in Health and Technology
Beyond the highest-yielding variety: dendrogram-based functional clustering of oil palm germplasm for multi-trait breeding, genetic diversity conservation, and climate-resilient productivity
Loso Judijanto
Received: September 15, 2026 | Published: October 1, 2026
Citation: Judijanto L. Beyond the highest-yielding variety: dendrogram-based functional clustering of oil palm germplasm for multi-trait breeding, genetic diversity conservation, and climate-resilient productivity. Open Access J Sci. 2026;9(1):460-472. DOI: 10.15406/oajs.2026.09.00330
Abstract
Oil palm breeding increasingly requires simultaneous improvement of yield, oil recovery, plant architecture, productive longevity, environmental adaptation, and genetic diversity rather than maximization of a single trait. This qualitative literature review uses as a provisional empirical anchor an unpublished dendrogram of 59 oil palm variety entries prepared by Dimas Haryo Pamungkas, Senior Researcher at IPOSS Jakarta, and separated into eight groups at a reported linkage distance of 9.71. The individual variety identities, standardized trait matrix, numerical trait values, scaling procedure, distance measure, linkage algorithm, and rationale for the 9.71 cut were not available for independent verification; accordingly, C1-C8 are treated strictly as provisional functional annotations rather than validated biological or genetic clusters. Sixty-three peer-reviewed journal sources from 2020-2026 were synthesized to examine alternative productivity pathways, trait trade-offs, genetic diversity, genomic validation, and environment-specific deployment. The literature shows that productivity can arise through different combinations of bunch number, bunch mass, biological oil-to-bunch ratio, mill extraction performance, architecture, precocity, and sustained performance, while several of these traits can trade off. The review therefore proposes a Cluster Complementarity Breeding Framework in which the dendrogram generates hypotheses for breeding pools but does not establish genetic distance, heterosis, or parental complementarity. Illustrative cross combinations, including C1 x C6 and C2 x C3, are testable examples only and require marker or pedigree/coancestry information, breeding-value and combining-ability assessment, replicated progeny trials, and evaluation across ages and environments. Phenomics, genomic prediction, GWAS, metabolomics, and machine learning are considered only insofar as they can validate, refine, or operationalize these provisional cluster hypotheses. No cluster is presented as universally superior; its breeding value depends on validated trait expression, genetic relationships, target environments, and breeding objectives.
Keywords: oil palm, Elaeis guineensis, dendrogram, hierarchical clustering, genetic diversity, germplasm, multi-trait breeding, genomic selection, yield components, genotype–environment interaction
©2026 Judijanto. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and build upon your work non-commercially.