Vegetative propagation techniques for red <i>Maesobotrya Bateri</i> (Ubene) Plantation Development in the tropical rainforest of southeastern Nigeria

Abstract

The red Maesobotrya bateri, (Ubene - Jbo), is a common spontaneous plant of the tropical rainforest of Southeastern Nigeria. The red aromatic mature fruits of 'maeso' plants are normally hawked by women and children for pittance. Recently, the status of red Maesobotrya fruits was enhanced through value addition processing into high demand Ubene Wine. Excessive exploitation of red Maesobotrya from the wild threatened its in situ conservation. Need therefore arises for ex situ domestication. To maintain the red Maesobotrya colour purity, vegetative propagation is the answer: The treatments consisted of the two stem conditions of ripewood and greenwood cuttings, three lengths of cutting (10, 20 and 30 cm) and three leaf trimmings (total defoliation, half lamina and intact leaf lamina retentions). The 2 x 3 x 3 factorial experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design with three replicates in the tree crop nursery for one year. Thereafter; vigorous grafts were spaced 3.0 x 3.0 min the orchard and monitored to maturity. Ripewood cuttings were superior the greenwood cuttings in early rapid vegetative propagation of vigorous grafts in the nursery. In the orchard, same cutting grafts mature dearly (4-5 years) and produced high true-to-type fruit yields (10-15kg/plant). The grafts of greenwood cuttings matured late (6 - 7 years) with low quality fruit yield (8 - 9 kg/plants). Stem cuttings 10 cm long with half trimmed leaves were superior in growth and yield to all other cutting lengths and leaf trimming, irrespective of the stem cutting condition (ripewood or greenwood). The technology is simple, cheap, affordable and environmentally friendly.