Common name: Sago

Sago is a starch-yielding palm from Southeast Asia and the South Pacific, with its native range extending from Thailand through Malaysia and Indonesia to Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, and Fiji.

At its largest, it reaches 20 m (65 ft) tall, though it is more commonly 10 to 15 m (33 to 50 ft), with a stout, barrel-like trunk supporting a crown of steeply arching fronds. The fronds are 5 to 7 m (16 to 23 ft) long from base to tip and typically palm-like, being made up of more than one hundred leaflets, each up to 1.5 m (5 ft) long and arranged in pairs along the length.

The trunk is light grey, ringed with leaf scars and with persisting leaf bases just below the crown. It is a clumping palm that sends up suckers from around the base, forming dense stands over time.

The flowers are unisexual and borne on the same branching flower stalk, which is very large, up to 6 m (20 ft) tall, extending above the leaves at the top of the palm. It flowers only once in its lifetime when around ten to fifteen years old, then fruits and dies.

The fertilised female flowers are followed by small round fruit up to 4 cm (1.6 in) in diameter. They have yellow-brown, scale-like skin and enclose a nut at their centre with a single, hard seed inside.

Edible uses

Plant-based starch - The trunk core, or pith, is one of the primary sources of sago, an edible starch extracted from certain palms. The starch is extracted by felling the palm when the starch reserves are at their highest, just before or just after flowering but before fruit-set. After felling, workers split the trunk lengthwise, scrape out the white pith, mix it with water, and pound it to release the starch. They then strain and dry the resulting solution to produce sago flour. Crude starch yields vary by tree, averaging 110 to 136 kilograms (243 to 300 pounds), with exceptional specimens yielding up to 400 kilograms (880 pounds).

Flour - Sago flour is used to make noodles, biscuits, bread, and sago pearls - round, white, bite-sized pieces of cooked sago paste that have become a popular addition to cold drinks and desserts in Southeast Asia because of their playful, pearl-like appearance and chewy texture.

Natural thickening agent - Also used to thicken puddings, jellies, soups, and many other dishes.

Natural gelling agent - As well as acting as a gelling agent for the same range of dishes.

Natural food stabiliser - And as a stabiliser.

Bird or poultry feed - It is also used, to some extent, in poultry feed formulations.

Livestock feed - As well as other livestock feed generally.

Material uses

Plant-based sizing agent - Sago starch is also one of only a few starches used in the textile industry for sizing and filling, which involves immersing the yarn in a starchy solution. This protects the yarn from injury during weaving by giving it temporary strength and abrasion resistance to the stresses and strains of the loom, while also giving the finished fabric a closely woven appearance, body, and soft hand feel. Other starches used for sizing and filling include tapioca starch from Cassava (Manihot esculenta).

​Sago pudding with mango puree

Sago pearls coconut pudding​

Climate

Grows naturally in freshwater swamp environments in humid to very humid tropical lowlands climates, generally in areas with annual lows of 20 to 25°C, annual highs of 29 to 34°C, annual rainfall of 2000 to 6000 mm, and a dry season of 2 months or less.

Growing

New plants are grown from suckers dug up at the base of established palms. It performs best on deep, slow-draining clay and loam soils of an acid to neutral nature, generally with a pH of 4.0 to 7.0 and on sites with full sun exposure.

Commercial plantations are mostly established on peat soils, which are acidic and water retentive. Sago palms tolerate seasonal flooding and soil salinity, reportedly unaffected by salinity levels equivalent to 4.5 grams of dissolved salt per litre of water, or approximately one-eighth the concentration of seawater.

Problem features

It produces fruit only once in its lifetime, and the seeds are seldom fertile, but it has a strong suckering habit that, if unmanaged, can lead to the formation of dense stands over time. It is listed as a weed in at least one reference publication, but there does not appear to be any record of it anywhere as a serious weed.

Cultivated varieties are without spines, but other common varieties produce sharp spines that can inflict injury on the unwary.

Books

• Bladholm, L. 1999, The Asian grocery store demystified, 1st edition, Renaissance Books, Los Angeles, California

• Blombery, A. M. & Rodd, A. N. 1992, An informative, practical guide to palms of the world : their cultivation, care and landscape use, (Revised edition), Angus & Robertson, North Ryde, New South Wales

• Brady, G. S. & Clauser, H. R & Vaccari, J. A. 2002, Materials handbook : an encyclopedia for managers, technical professionals, purchasing and production managers, technicians and supervisors, 15th ed., McGraw-Hill, New York

• Elevitch, C. R. 2006, Traditional trees of Pacific Islands: their culture, environment and use, 1st edition, Permanent Agriculture Resources, Holualoa, Hawaii

• Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Food Policy and Nutrition Division 1989, Utilization of tropical foods: trees, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome

• Johnson, D.V. & Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) 2011, Tropical palms (2010 revision), FAO, United Nations, Rome

• Macmillan, H. F. 1943, Tropical planting and gardening : with special reference to Ceylon, 5th ed, Macmillan Publishing, London

• Purseglove, J. W. 1981, Tropical crops: Monocotyledons, Longman, Harlow, London

• Randall, R. P. 2002, A global compendium of weeds, R.G. and F.J. Richardson Press, Melbourne

• Tacon, A. G. & Hasan, M. R. 2009, Feed ingredients and fertilizers for farmed aquatic animals : sources and composition, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Rome

• Van Wyk, B. E. 2005, Food plants of the world: an illustrated guide, 1st ed., Timber Press, Portland, Oregon