Optimisation du greffage pour trois espèces fruitières de cueillette des zones sahélo-soudaniennes: Balanites aegyptiaca, Detarium senegalense et Tamarindus indica

Optimization of Grafting for three Gathered Fruit Species of Sahelo-Sudanese Areas: Balanites aegyptaica, Detarium senegalense and Tamarindus indica. Balanites aegyptiaca, Detarium senegalense and Tamarindus indica are three forest species producing fruits traditionally picked and much enjoyed by Sahelo-Sudanese populations. They consume the pulp either fresh or transformed into drinks. To struggle against the diminishing resources of gathered fruits as well as the genetic erosion, a domestication program is being carried out in Senegal. It aims at selecting and cloning trees of a superior phenotype before introducing them into local populations. Some tests have been tried out so as to develop and optimise techniques of grafting adapted to theses species. The tested factors have been the age of the source plants, the time for grafting, as well as the type of graft. The best dates to graft have been defined as follows: end of dry season for D. senegalense, during rainy season for B. aegyptiaca, beginning of dry season for T. indica. For these three species the apical grafts (cleft graft and splice graft) gave better results than other types. A narrow relationship has been established between the survival percentage of juvenile and mature materials. However, the development of these techniques is not to be taken into consideration without the preliminary application of protocols concerning the rejuvenation of mature material.