The oil from palms   has a wide variety of uses and is found in food, soaps and shampoos. An international team found a gene that made some of the trees produce more oil than others. Dr Rajinder Singh, from government agency the Malaysian Palm Oil Board, said, "The oil palm has three fruit forms: a thick-shelled type --the Dura; those that don't have any shell--the Pisifera; a third form produced as a cross between the thick shell and the one without the shell--the Tenera, which are more of the fleshy fruit to produce the oil," and the researchers identified the gene producing this trait. While oil palm growers attempt to grow only the thin-shelled Tenera variety, up to 10% of the seeds can be contaminated  , and turn out to be the other less oily plants. Prof. Martienssen, from the Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory, said, "We can now use that gene in genetic testing, which will allow growers as well as producers to know exactly what sort of tree they are planting before it produces fruit. It takes a long time for these trees to produce fruit, but by being able to predict exactly what sort of fruit that trees will produce, it will greatly assist growers." The researchers say this could offer a more sustainable form of agriculture. Prof. Martienssen said, "This finding gives us huge hope. We hope to maximize land usage and produce a lot more on the same amount of land, because we do not want to destroy the rainforest any more." However, the environmental group WWF-UK said that the global demand for oil palm was growing rapidly, making the expansion of plantations inevitable. Adam Harrison, the organization's food and agriculture policy officer, said, "In a sense it does not matter if a 'good' variety replaces forest or a 'bad' one, the wildlife and communities that need access to that land will suffer. So for palm oil to be sustainable, the process of allocating   land needs to be controlled. There is an abundance of low-carbon, low-wildlife and conflict-free land available and there is no more need for forest areas to be changed." What difficulty are the oil palm growers faced with?
The more oily palms easily died of bad weather. The more oily palms can change to the less oily ones. They don't have enough land to grow oil palms. They are unable to predict exactly what sort of fruit the trees they are planting will produce.