DOMESTICATION OFDACRYODES EDULISIN WEST AND CENTRAL AFRICA: CHARACTERISATION OF GENETIC VARIATION

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Abstract
New initiatives in agroforestry are seeking to integrate trees with marketable products into farming systems. This is being done in order to provide marketable timber and non-timber forest products from farms that will enhance rural livelihoods by generating cash for subsistence farmers. Dacryodes edulis (Safou) is one of the candidate tree species in West and Central Africa for domestication, which has commercial potential in local, regional or even international markets. This paper describes: (i) the characterisation of tree-to-tree variation in fruit traits and the opportunities for selecting D. edulis cultivars based on the intraspecific variation found in local populations in Cameroon and Nigeria, (ii) the identification of multi-trait ideotypes for potential cultivar development, (iii) the organoleptic attributes which are important traits for selection, and (iv) an assessment of the relationships between fruit mass and market prices in fruit samples from three markets, at the peak of season, in Cameroon.