Content and Relationship of Foliar Nutrients in the Presence of the “Duster” Physiopathy in Oil Palm ( <i>Elaeis guineensis</i> Jacq.)

The physiopathy of the oil palm ( Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) called “duster” whose causal agent is unknown is characterized by abnormality in the development of the leaf and longitudinal chlorotic streaking parallel to the midrib. Dissections of plants affected by this disease show no signs at first sight. Therefore, the objective was to explore and evaluate the relationship between some chemical and physical properties of the soils and the content of some elements in the leaves with the presence of physiopathy. Sampling was done of leaflets and the surrounding soil in an oil palm plantation located on the northern coast of Colombia. For the analysis of the data from the foliar analyses, a logistic regression model was used with training and test data. The predictions were contrasted with statistics obtained from the soil data, finding that the affected palms had low S, B and high Fe content in the leaves compared to healthy palms, in addition to obvious differences probably attributable to the K/Mo relationships, Mo/Se, and Z/S. None of these relationships showed a pattern with available soil information.