489 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 J. M. Al-Khayri et al. (eds.), Advances in Plant Breeding Strategies: Industrial and Food Crops, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23265-8_13 Chapter 13 Oil Palm (Elaeis spp.) Breeding in Malaysia Fadila Ahmad Malike, Mohd Din Amiruddin, Zulkifi Yaakub, Marhalil Marjuni, Norziha Abdullah, Nor Azwani Abu Bakar, Suzana Mustaffa, Mohd Mustakim Mohamad, Mohd Yazid Hassan, Meilina Ong Abdullah, Ahmad Parveez Ghulam Kadir, and Ahmad Kushairy Din Abstract The planted area of oil palm has grown to over 5.81 million ha by 2017, uplifting the economy and livelihood of Malaysians over the last 100 years since its beginning as a plantation crop in 1917. The narrowness of the active gene pool was recognized as one of the major drawbacks to a successful and rapid selection prog- ress in oil palm breeding. The industry has made signifcant strides by incorporating germplasm material sourced from its center of origin in Africa and South America into on-going breeding programs. This resulted in the development of 13 new types of genetic material (PS series) by the Malaysian Palm Oil Board that have been distributed to the industry. An active tissue culture program has also facilitated clon- ing of high yielding palms, where clonal uniformity offers the opportunity to increase yields of up to 30%. Research and development efforts to further improve the productivity of oil palm received a boost when its genome was sequenced and released in 2013, which laid the foundation for applying genome-based technolo- gies in oil palm research. With the discovery of a few genes at the molecular level together with oil palm genome, sequence data, we expect further integration of con- ventional and molecular breeding. Biotechnology research is the core area to open- ing up new avenues for oil palm improvement toward an era of precision agriculture and sustainability. Keywords Biotechnology · Breeding · Genetic resources · Molecular breeding · Oil palm F. Ahmad Malike · M. D. Amiruddin · Z. Yaakub · M. Marjuni · N. Abdullah N. A. Abu Bakar · S. Mustaffa · M. M. Mohamad · M. Y. Hassan · M. O. Abdullah A. P. Ghulam Kadir (*) · A. K. Din Malaysian Palm Oil Board, Advanced Biotechnology and Breeding Centre (ABBC), Persiaran Institusi, Kajang, Selangor, Malaysia e-mail: fadila@mpob.gov.my; mohddin@mpob.gov.my; zulkify@mpob.gov.my; marhalil@mpob.gov.my; norziha.abdullah@mpob.gov.my; nor.azwani@mpob.gov.my; suzana.mustaffa@mpob.gov.my; mohd.mustakim@mpob.gov.my; myazid@mpob.gov.my; meilina@mpob.gov.my; parveez@mpob.gov.my; kushairi@mpob.gov.my