Challenges to Stimulating the Adoption and Impact of Indigenous Fruit Trees in Tropical Agriculture - Indigenous Fruit Trees in the Tropics: Domestication, Utilization and Commercialization - page 57

3.3.2 Selection, domestication and multiplication of high-quality planting
materials
Tree habitats, such as bush fallow, homegardens, compound farms, farm
wood-lots, etc., have valuable resources, which frequently meet part of the
subsistence and income needs of local communities. Hence, the indigenous
fruit trees from the forest as well as from other ecosystems can provide
household income for both rural people and peri-urban communities. The
domestication of fruit trees would provide more opportunities for integrating
various fruit tree species into agricultural systems. The species that produce
locally valued commodities are new sources for domestication.
However, the domestication process of tree species through selection and
breeding takes a long time and is expensive. Commonly, genetic selections are
made on the basis of provenance, progeny variation and breeding, whether
they are forestry, agroforestry or household farm species (ICUC, 2003).
Because of the large investment of time and capital required, the cultivation of
most fruit tree species is neglected and they remain underutilized. Recent
interest in the ethnobotany and use of forest and agroforestry species has
resulted in the need for domestication of some multipurpose indigenous fruit
trees. As a result, scientists have been looking into the options for rapid
domestication. Leakey and Newton (1994, 1995) described an alternative
process for domestication which involves the capture of the existing
intraspecific variation within any population, and its maintenance through
vegetative propagation of individual favoured types. Thus an individual with
superior characteristics can be mass-produced. Through a series of ongoing
and increasingly intensive selection processes, it is also possible to achieve
rapid and substantial genetic improvements. In recent years, progress has been
made in the assessment of the genetic resources of underutilized indigenous
trees to capture the genetic diversity for use in the domestication process
(ICUC, 2003). It is essential that a systematic programme be established for the
domestication of indigenous fruit trees and that studies on the diversity of
species and selection of superior clones be conducted. The models developed
by Tchoundjeu et al . (2006) and Akinnifesi et al . (2006) can be tried in other
geographical areas in order to scale-up their methods.
Improvement for higher yield and other favourable characteristics is more
likely to be achieved if there is high genetic variation. Leakey et al . (2004)
suggest that intraspecific variation is high at village level and domestication of
this variation will allow the selection of superior cultivars. It is important that
the domestication of selected trees involves the conservation of genetically
variable strains in germplasm collections ( ex situ ) or in the field ( in situ )
coupled with effective management of selected types to protect the
environment, avoiding dependence on chemical pesticides and fertilizers and
making effective use of water resources. A detailed knowledge of the genetic
variation within the species is essential in order to design a strategy to promote
the use and conservation of indigenous fruit trees through on-farm cultivation.
For instance, despite germplasm collection and research activities on a
number of indigenous fruit trees across southern Africa, little is known concerning