J. Appl. Environ. Biol. Sci., 5(6)60-64, 2015 © 2015, TextRoad Publication ISSN: 2090-4274 Journal of Applied Environmental and Biological Sciences www.textroad.com *Corresponding Author: Rendana, School of Environmental and Natural Resources Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology, Research Centre for Tropical Climate Change System (IKLIM), The National University of Malaysia, 4360 Bangi, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia. mrendana02@gmail.com A Review of Methods for Detecting Nutrient Stress of Oil Palm in Malaysia Muhammad Rendana*, Sahibin Abdul Rahim, Tukimat Lihan, Wan Mohd Razi Idris, Zulfahmi Ali Rahman School of Environmental and Natural Resources Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology, Research Centre for Tropical Climate Change System (IKLIM), The National University of Malaysia, 4360 Bangi, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia Received: February 9, 2015 Accepted: April 10, 2015 ABSTRACT Oil palm plantation is one of the plantation crops in Malaysia which requires high nutrient input. It is needed to make the crop at the optimum growth and production stage. Nutrient stress is an interference of crop health caused by lack of nutrient elements to support the requirement of crop growth. Generally, it is strongly related to nitrogen status in crop. This article aims to describe advantages, disadvantages and recent advanced techniques to consider a promising method for nutrient stress study in Malaysia. The conventional method of “Kjeldahl Digestion” to determine nitrogen content is known as destructive method, labour- intensive and time consuming. Moreover, transmittance device of SPAD chlorophyll meter is low sensitivity for detecting N stress at early stages and chlorophyll saturation. In addition, multispectral and hyper spectral sensors are very costly and weather dependence but they give more precise and larger areas coverage. As a whole, the study revealed that remote sensing techniques such as, hyper spectral and multispectral sensors have potential for use in detecting nutrient stress of oil palm in near future. KEYWORDS: Nitrogen, nutrient stress, oil palm, remote sensing INTRODUCTION The nutrient status is one of the most important factors in determining oil palm productivity and crop yield. An insufficient of nutrient to meet the requirement of oil palm resulted nutrient stress which contributes to significant drop in oil palm productivity. Nitrogen (N) is one of essential nutrients in plants due to its key roles in chlorophyll production, which is fundamental for the photosynthesis process [1]. Hence, N-content is often used as the benchmark for nutrient stress of oil palm. However, the conventional method for N analysis involves time and labor-consuming, thus restricting the number of analyses that can be done [2].On the other hand, the simpler, less labors and rapid technique such as those optical meters, are expensive, insensitive and atmospheric dependence. In the study is briefly described few methods and techniques for detecting nutrient stress in Malaysia’s oil palm estates which later it can be considered for the most promising of these compromise methodologies. OVERVIEW OF METHODS, TECHNIQUES AND INSTRUMENTS FOR NUTRIENT STRESS DETECTION Kjeldahl method (leaf analysis) Leaf analysis has been used as a common method to estimate plant N-status of oil palm in Malaysia. It generally uses the 17 th frond leaves of oil palm (>2.5 years) to compare actual crop N status of laboratory with plant N status predicted by others instruments or recent developed system. The determination of 17 th frond leaves to analyse the N status is caused by the sensitivity of those leaves to indicate nutrient content (N, P and K) in oil palm [3]. Meanwhile, nutrient status in 17 th frond leaves has a better correlation to oil palm production compare to others young leaves [4]. This frond is under the 9 th frond, which it is somewhat to the left in right-spiral or to the right in leaf-spiral of oil palm. The criteria of sampling technique for leaf analysis should reflect the homogenous unit such as, age of crop, soil type, topography, drainage and technical applied. It is important to avoid false recommendation for fertilization. In history, Kjeldahl method is one of the most used method to determine total N which proposed by Johan Kjeldahl in 1883. It also known as “Kjeldahl Digestion” and it has been widely used 60