The first plantings at the La Mé station (Côte d'Ivoire) were set up in 1920 using material from selections carried out in the Bingerville region (Côte d'Ivoire). Those populations served as the basis for the first oil palm breeding programmes in that country. Thereafter, a policy was adopted to diversify the origins worked on. Thus. over the years, the station has acquired numerous populations from Central Africa, West Africa and Asia. The acquisitions come from surveys of wild palm groves or exchanges between research stations. In that way, one of the largest collections in Africa has been assembled, involving 174 accessions derived from 21 populations planted on 85 hectares. Each of these populations has been assessed at the La Mé site for its agronomic traits. Their inherent value and their combining ability have been studied. The best parents of the oldest introduced populations have been used to form the backbone of the reciprocal recurrent selection programme. The most recent introductions are used to enrich the improved populations by integrating the best parents during recombination phases.