The famous baobab tree is being domesticated. Farmers seldom plant baobabs because they take between eight and 23 years to flower 鈥� and potentially begin bearing fruit 鈥� but a pair of researchers in Ghana have got them to flower in less than three years.
The work could lead to plantations of baobabs springing up all over Africa. 鈥淭hat is our vision,鈥� says at Ho Technical University in Ghana. 鈥淲hat we need now is funding.鈥�
In parts of Africa, Adansonia digitata, known as聽the African baobab tree, is already an important food source. Its fruit, seeds, leaves, flowers and roots are edible. Fibre from the bark is used to make mats, ropes and hats, and every part of the tree is used in traditional medicines.
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The pulp of the fruit has been approved as a food in the US and Europe in recent years, where it is being promoted as a 鈥渟uperfood鈥�, so the fruit is now exported too. However, all harvesting is still done from wild trees. 鈥淭here are no known commercial plantations,鈥� says Egbadzor.
Domesticating the baobab has long been seen as an important goal. The widespread cultivation of the trees would diversify farming and improve food security, say Egbadzor and his colleague Jones Akuaku, also at Ho Technical University. This is especially important . Baobabs store water in their trunks and can keep fruiting during droughts.
Because of the value of baobab products, farmers would also be able to earn more money, alleviating poverty, the pair say.
In recent years, such as grafting 鈥� widely used for fruit production globally 鈥� to speed up fruit production, and Egbadzor and Akuaku have achieved the best results yet.
The pair soaked the baobab鈥檚 tough seeds in acid to get them to germinate. When the seedlings were seven months old, branches from mature trees that were already fruiting were grafted onto the seedlings. The first tree started flowering 20 months later, when it was just 1.7 metres high.
The results should encourage farmers to plant baobabs, says Egbadzor. Being able to collect fruits from much smaller trees will also be an advantage. Harvesting fruits from big trees, whose trunks are too smooth to climb, is difficult.
鈥淲ithout doubt, I can say that baobab is becoming effectively domesticated, because different ways of propagating the species are being mastered,鈥� says Kolawol茅 Val猫re Salako at the University of Abomey-Calavi in Benin. Egbadzor and Akuaku鈥檚 results are the best so far, says Salako, but need to be repeated to ensure the results are consistent and scalable.
Domestication will contribute to the protection of the tree, says at Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences in Germany, who leads .
鈥淚ncreasing commercialisation in some areas is increasing the pressure on the [wild baobab] resource,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he long-term ambition is to develop agroforestry systems including baobabs and some other crops in order to release pressure on these natural baobab stands.鈥�
But it is possible to exploit wild baobabs in sustainable ways, and in some places there are more baobabs near human settlements than elsewhere, says Darr. There are also still vast areas in Africa where baobabs aren鈥檛 intensively utilised, he says.
Recently, many of the oldest and largest baobabs in Africa have died off, likely as a result of climate change, a study reported in 2018. Some of the trees were more than 2000 years old. The species isn鈥檛 regarded as threatened, but numbers in places.
Protecting wild baobabs will remain important even if baobabs are widely cultivated, says Egbadzor. 鈥淭he natural variability has to be conserved even after domestication.鈥�
Reference: bioRxiv,聽
