摘要
At the moment there is no system to evaluate climate suitability for oil palm cultivation. Most of land evaluation systems in Peninsular Malaysia often overlooked climate as not important on the assumption that the effect of climatic factors on oil palm yield are small. The system to evaluate climate suitability was proposed and it follows the FAO Framework for Land Evaluation but employs a parametric approach using climatic data which are easily available. The climatic criteria used are mean annual temperature, mean daily maximum temperature, mean daily minimum temperature, mean annual rainfall, length of dry season, amount of sunshine and mean annual relative humidity. The evaluation of climate was carried out using information from nine meteorological stations in Peninsular Malaysia viz. Alor Star （Kedah）, Ipoh （Perak）, Kuala Lumpur, Malacca （Malacca）, Kluang （Johore）, Senai （Johore）, Kuantan （Pahang）, Kuala Krai （Kelantan） and Tanah Merah （Kelantan）. The results for actual suitability classification showed that eight of the stations are highly suitable （S 1） for oil palm cultivation with land indices ranging from 75 to 93. One station Alor Star is moderately suitable （S2y） due to dry season. The results for potential suitability classification showed that all the stations are highly suitable for oil palm cultivation with land indices ranging from 90 to 99.
