Ganoderma fungus grows on the trunk of an oil palm tree, which causes the trunk to rot, at Sepang, Malaysia July 30, 2025. REUTERS/Hasnoor Hussain/File Photo
GANODERMA boninense is the oil palm industry’s Public Enemy No. 1 – quietly costing more than RM2bil a year. It doesn’t shout.
It doesn’t rush. It simply kills palms, slashes yields and drains profits.
Left unchecked, Ganoderma won’t just bring down trees – it could bring down the industry. This menace isn’t new. It’s been lurking since the late 1980s.
Every planter knows it. Nothing new? But perhaps, some are finally waking up after decades of hitting the snooze button.
Basal stem rot (BSR) used to be an old-tree problem – palms aged 25 to 30 years.
Then it moved to younger palms, aged 10 to 15. Today, it shows no mercy – even attacking youthful palms barely one year old. Several Ganoderma species are involved – G. boninense, G. zonatum and G. miniatocinctum.
Sounds like an interesting biodiversity list? Hardly. These aren’t specimens to admire – they’re palm killers. And Ganoderma boninense is the ringleader. Different names, same outcome: trouble.
BSR once favoured coastal estates, but it has marched inland – peat soils included. It spreads quietly – root to root underground, and through airborne spores hitching rides on the wind.
By the time you see it, it’s often too late.
The numbers don’t lie. In 2009/10, about 3.7% of estates were affected – roughly 60,000ha. By 2016/2017, that figure doubled to 7.4%, hitting 221,000ha out of nearly three million surveyed. I believe the latest survey if revealed will be more alarming.
Silent, persistent, expanding, Ganoderma isn’t just a disease – it’s a wake-up call. If I were Ganoderma, I would not rush you. I would wait and build my army. Because nothing feeds me better than inaction dressed up as patience. You call me a scourge. I call myself a symptom.
I thrive when conferences celebrate preliminary findings that have been preliminary for decades, when meetings adjourn with “we’ll monitor” and reports close politely with “further studies needed” – a phrase that conveniently survives every budget cycle.
I grow best where resources orbit but never touch soil, and where action is delayed for yet another trial, another pilot, another beautifully animated PowerPoint. I thrive when you delay.
If I were Ganoderma, I would be deeply offended if you called me a villain. Villains arrive suddenly. They are dramatic. They are defeated. I am none of those.
I am biology doing what biology does best: colonising weakness, exploiting gaps, responding faithfully to opportunity.
If I were Ganoderma, I would remind you gently that there is no cure. Not yet. Not really. Not honestly.
Despite decades of research, millions spent, papers published, products launched and hopes raised – I remain.
Untouched. Unimpressed. You cannot eradicate me. You can only manage my presence, delay my spread, sanitise my mess.
Burning? Restricted. Chemicals? Limited, inconsistent. Biological agents? Promising, but patchy. Trichoderma, endophytes, soil amendments – helpful in some places, disappointing in others.
Disease-tolerant materials? Promising and may need to minimise the negative effects on other important traits, eg, yield during selection. I do not disappear. I adapt.
If I were Ganoderma, I would enjoy the word sanitisation. It sounds decisive, doesn’t it? Clean. Professional. Reassuring. But sanitisation is not victory. It is housekeeping. You dig out infected palms. You remove stumps. You isolate blocks. You trench, treat and hope. And hope, as you know, is not a strategy.
Sanitisation buys time. Time buys yields. But time also buys me – especially when follow-through weakens, budgets tighten and urgency fades.
If I were Ganoderma, I would smile politely at your need for simplicity. You want me to be one thing. One pathogen. One pathway. One solution. Sorry – I am not.
“Please release me, let me go...” Sorry –wrong song. The right line is: “I love you more with each day that goes by.” That’s me, Ganoderma.
I am not asking to be released. I am asking to be understood. I am many species wearing one reputation. Remember me –boninense, zonatum, miniatocinctum.
Some of us rot from below. Some from above. Some wait patiently for maturity; others strike early. Even when you think you know me, my genetics disagree. I vary within the same estate – sometimes within the same block.
If I were Ganoderma, I would remind you that I do not arrive fully formed. I mate. I wait for compatibility. Two harmless strands meet, recognise each other, and only then do I become pathogenic.
Until that moment, I live quietly – saprophytic, decomposing what you left behind. Stumps you forgot. Roots you buried. Residue you hoped would “rot away”. You call this survival. I call it patience.
If I were Ganoderma, I would be amused that you watch the wind when I prefer the soil. Yes, my spores travel millions released nightly while you sleep – but my real work happens underground.
Root to root. Palm to palm. Generation to generation. Clusters, not randomness. Memory, not chance. You fight me tree by tree. I move system by system.
If I were Ganoderma, I would appreciate your detection tools. Sound waves. Spectral imaging. Neural networks. Molecular kits. Very clever. Very impressive. But detection does not stop me. It only tells you how long I have already been there.
By the time my fruiting body appears –that glossy, bracketed confession at the base of a palm – half the trunk is already gone. Yield left earlier. Strength followed. Collapse is just the courtesy notice, and I continue to move on with life. Thank you.
If I were Ganoderma, I would enjoy irony. I thrive best in the very conditions oil palms love most: warmth, humidity, acidity, generous nutrition. Your ideal estate is also my ideal home.
Sandy soils help me move faster. Peat soils help me spread wider. Wounds –from tools, pests, animals, harvests – give me entry. Weak palms invite me in politely.
You once called me a disease of old palms. Then I appeared in young ones.
You called me a problem of later generations. Then I surfaced in the first. This is not escalation. This is accumulation.
If I were Ganoderma, I would quietly note how often the industry confuses control with
cure. Control requires discipline. Cure requires a miracle. I am not afraid of discipline. I am
terrified of complacency - and complacency, my friends, is far more common.
If I were Ganoderma, I would remind you that I do not need negligence. Inconsistency alone
will do. One untreated stump. One delayed replanting. One compromised sanitation round.
One estate that says, “We’ll do it next year.” That is enough.
If I were Ganoderma, I would love conferences. That is where I hear the most confident
voices. Every few years, someone arrives with the solution. A formulation. A protocol. Asilver bullet with a trademarked name. Slides are impressive. Testimonials convincing. Field
results - selectively optimistic.
But uncertainty often waits at the bottom of the slide deck, tucked into small print:
“Results may vary depending on soil, climate, severity, age of palms, and management
practices.” Translation: I still decide.
If I were Ganoderma, I would let the opportunists speak. I would not interrupt. Because
when desperation meets disease, certainty becomes a commodity. And I am very good at
surviving disappointment.
Some products slow me. Some reduce symptoms. Some protect new plantings - for a while.
None erase me.
If I were Ganoderma, I would be amused by how often you fight me palm by palm,
when I operate through soil memory, root networks, residue, and time. You cannot see me
early. You cannot smell me coming. You only meet me when yield has already left the room.
If I were Ganoderma, I would end with this truth - calmly, without malice: I am not winning
because I am strong. I am winning because you hesitate. You hesitate to replant early. You
hesitate to accept losses. You hesitate to act decisively when economics, emotion and
optimism collide. I thrive in those pauses.
Until the day science truly corners me - not with promises, not with partial fixes, not with
commercial bravado - but with humility, discipline, system-wide resolve, sectoral solidarity,
and effective leadership, I will remain.
Veni. Vidi. Vici. But, you came. You saw. But you have not yet conquered me.
I, Ganoderma, signing off and bid you farewell. Remember, I am not a villain. Not a curse.
Not even an enemy in the way you imagine. I am an important reminder. In plantations, as
in life, what we delay does not disappear. It compounds.
In my world, certainty is optional. Complacency is not.
Joseph Tek Choon Yee has over 30 years experience in the plantation industry, with a strong background in oil palm research and development, C-suite leadership and industry advocacy. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.
