An Indonesian plantation company has filed the first patent applications for a hybrid variety of palm oil seeds and their production that it expects will increase the crop's yield by several hundred per cent. London Sumatra, a British-founded company now part of the Indofood Group, is confident the new hybrid palm oil varieties should boost yields from the Indonesian average of about 4 tonnes a hectare per year to at least 18 tonnes. More than 90 per cent of maize grown in the US is of F1 hybrids and yields are almost six times what they were before the varieties were introduced 80 years ago. Analysts say that while other factors such as agronomy and crop protection also contribute to higher yields, F1 hybrids could have a big impact on palm oil production. It should also greatly enhance palm oil's environmental reputation since far less land would be required to meet global demand. This should have positive consequences for its attraction as a biofuel. Green campaigners routinely label palm oil, particularly from Indonesia, as extremely environmentally unfriendly because so much virgin rainforest is cleared for plantations. Sumatra Bioscience, the Lonsum subsidiary behind the project, says commercial roll-out is still a decade away because of the testing required. Some analysts caution high sales could take years more than that if companies wait till consistently high yields have been proven. In 2007, the world consumed 38m tonnes of palm oil, more than any other animal or vegetable oil or fat. Jakarta-listed Lonsum filed its patent application with the European Patent Office in March 2007 even though it has yet to produce an F1 hybrid seed. Patent lawyers say it would have then undergone robust examination before being published for public scrutiny a fortnight ago. Approval could take two years but no other company will be allowed to apply for a similar patent while this is pending. Stephen Nelson, Sumatra Bioscience's research director, said: "The genetics of it, the fundamentals of it, strongly suggest there's no reason why we shouldn't achieve the high yields. There's no further inventive step to create the F1 hybrid seed. All we're going to do is an established process." Simon Lord, the sustainability director at Kulim, a Malaysian competitor of Lonsum, said the breakthrough "has the potential to be very significant". "Provided they get the right combination of genes that are exposed, yields should be very high and that is fairly likely," he said. Dorab Mistry, a director of Godrej International and one of the world's leading vegetable oil analysts, said: "It's a major step forward to solving the world's energy demand. It will revolutionise oil palm production if all goes well." He described Lonsum, as "the pick" of Indonesia's plantation companies.Indofood paid $620m for 64.4 per cent of the company last October. Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008