Creating Opportunities for Domesticating and Commercializing Miombo Indigenous Fruit Trees in Southern Africa - Indigenous Fruit Trees in the Tropics: Domestication, Utilization and Commercialization - page 152

opportunity for developing a hierarchy of different ideotypes to meet different
market opportunities.
In southern Africa, local knowledge of the rural communities was captured by
brainstorming at village workshops about the objectives of selection with 20-30
people in each group. Tree-to-tree variation was measured, with the communities,
in wild populations of Uapaca kirkiana and Strychnos cocculoides , and selection
of superior trees was based on market-oriented ideotype products (Akinnifesi et
al ., 2006). Together with villagers, the authors identified the superior trees on the
basis of superior traits, and these were were systematically named and tagged in
situ according to year of collection, location and ownership. Site descriptors were
documented and fruits sampled for detailed assessment of the qualitative and
quantitative characteristics, including chemical and organoleptic analysis. Seeds
and scions were also collected for growth and multiplication in the nursery. In
some cases, duplicate materials were collected by farmers and raised in individual
or group nurseries in their own communities. The superior germplasm was
subsequently evaluated in clonal orchards on-station and on-farm and fruits were
characterized and analysed for their chemical characteristics. This evaluation
identified the trees for subsequent vegetative propagation and clonal testing, so
that high-quality planting materials could be made available to farmers as soon as
possible.
Through the selection and propagation of elite genotypes from the wild,
new cultivars with superior or better marketable products - fruit size, sweetness
and fruit load with improved uniformity - have been obtained. A total of 429
trees with superior phenotypes of priority indigenous fruits ( Uapaca kirkiana ,
Strychnos cocculoides , Sclerocarya birrea , Vitex mombassae ) was selected in
the region from the wild, on the basis of criteria determined jointly with rural
community dwellers (farmers, marketers, traditional chiefs, schoolchildren) in
Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Tanzania. These include 107 superior Uapaca
kirkiana and 20 Strychnos cocculoides phenotypes in Malawi; 108 Uapaca
kirkiana and 34 Strychnos cocculoides trees in Zimbabwe; 78 Uapaca kirkiana
and Strychnos cocculoides trees in Zambia; and 30 trees of Vitex mombassae
and 20 superior Sclerocarya birrea trees in Tanzania.
In Malawi, the natural population of female Uapaca kirkiana trees was 40 trees
per hectare in Dedza, 81 trees per hectare in Kasumbu and 490 trees per hectare at
Phalombe. During the participatory workshops with farmers, a few outstanding
trees, ideal for processing, were identified. To supplement the information received
from the participatory village workshops, elite trees were identified with
communities and measurements were made on fruit size, fruit sweetness (sugar
content) and pulp content (Akinnifesi et al ., 2006). The selection was based on
superior fruit characteristics from different populations and land uses. For example,
in Dedza, Malawi, among the elite Uapaca kirkiana trees identified as having high
fruit yields, one tree in particular had more than 6000 fruits per tree, with large fruit
size (3-4 cm diameter) and sweet taste (Akinnifesi et al ., 2006). The big-fruit
ideotype was locally described by expressions such as 'gundete okolera' in Dedza
and 'mapunbu amutiye' in Phalombe, Malawi, depicting its outstanding size,
appeal and taste. These same expressions were used to describe the most beautiful
unmarried girl or potential village beauty queens in the communities.