This paper describes a simple oil balance method for the determination of oil to bunch (O/B) and kernel to bunch (K/B) whereby the tedious manual process of removing the mesocarp eliminated by cutting the fruit longitudinally into two halves. After drying and removing the dried kernels, the dry mesocarp and shell are reduced into fine particles using an electric grinder which also homogenize the sample leading to greater accuracy in oil determination. Comparison of this method with the routine Blaak’s bunch analysis method showed that Blaak’s method gave O/B results which were higher than those of the oil balance method by an average of 15% of the mean O/B. On the other hand, the O/B and K/B figures obtained by the oil balance method agreed closely with the mill oil and kernel extraction rates after taking into account harvesting and processing losses.

Linear regression analysis showed that O/B decreased as bunch weight increased mainly due to a decreasing oil content of the fruits.

The results of a sampling exercise verified that the oil balance method was accurate with the estimates differing from the true values by about 1% unit for O/B and 2% units for K/B. Greater precision was obtained with fruit samples taken from all the fruits which  had been stripped from the spikelets after three days compared to fruits from intact spikelet samples taken on the first day. After quantification of the coefficients of variation (CV) of the bunch component ratios, the  CVs or precisions of estimating O/B and K/B using different sampling systems were computed.