Coconut (Cocos nucifera L.) is often referred to as "the tree of life" because of its many uses in the food, beverage, medicinal and cosmetic industries. Currently, more than 50% of the world's palms are senile and need to be replaced to ensure production levels meet the present and increasing demand for these coconut products. This immediate replanting requirement will not be met by traditional seed propagation methods alone. Recent opinions have suggested that in-vitro micropropagation via. somaticembryogenesis is one of the most promising approaches for the large-scale production of new coconut planting materials. This paper describes a process in which the steps of selecting coconut varieties for clonal propagation, the rudiments of the cloningand acclimatization procedures to create plantlets, and the role of the public-private sector in developing process for the mass generation, then delivering of the coconut clones to farmers. The paper will evaluate the expected potency of such a pathwayand discuss the challenges of delivering appropriately selected micro-propagated plantlets to farmers.
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