Abstract
Garcinia kola Heckel is a multipurpose medicinal tree with significant cultural and economic relevance in West and Central Africa. Although the domestication process is still in its early stages, most of the current research is laboratory-based, overlooking fields that can directly support the species’ development. We aimed to describe the morphological tree-to-tree variation of G. kola in Cameroon and identified plus trees representing the potential species’ ideotype. In total, 218 trees with 1,722 fruits and 4,553 seeds from 3 regions were analysed using 26 morphological descriptors. Statistical analysis was performed to select the top ten trees. The variation among study sites was identified using dendrogram and principal component analysis. Fruit seed mass was selected as the most important production-related criterion to identify the plus trees. It was a highly variable parameter (CV = 60%) with an average of 14.4 ± 8.56 g per fruit. The fruit/seed correlation revealed a strong link between high seed mass and large fruits. However, high fruit seed mass was not linked to any particular fruit and tree shape. Most of the plus trees originated in agroforestry systems. The overall phenotypic diversity within populations was greater than between them. In conclusion, G. kola’s domestication has not yet progressed enough to distinguish between wild and cultivated trees. Nonetheless, two ways of establishing future clonal cultivars were proposed based on fruit seed mass and fruit seed mass ratio. To improve the quality and uniformity of marketable seeds, selecting trees with above-average fruit seed mass was recommended.
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14 February 2024
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10722-024-01887-7
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Acknowledgements
We would like to express our deep gratitude to all the World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) researchers and employees in the regional office in Yaoundé, Cameroon and to the Tchana family. Finally, we would like to thank all of the Cameroonian smallholders who assisted us during the fieldwork and shared their knowledge about G. kola.
Funding
This research was funded by the Internal Grant Agency of the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague (CZU) nr. 20223103. The main author was supported by students’ grant awards of Nadace Nadání Josefa, Marie a Zdeňky Hlávkových, Czech Republic; Český literární fond, Czech Republic; and Student Mobility of the Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences, CZU Prague.
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AM, ZP, BL and ZT conceptualised and designed the study. Data collection was performed by AM and ST. Data analysis was done by AR-C and AM. The first draft of the manuscript was written by AM. All authors contributed to finalising of the manuscript and reviewed and approved its final version.
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Maňourová, A., Polesný, Z., Ruiz-Chután, A. et al. Identification of plus trees for domestication: phenotypical description of Garcinia kola populations in Cameroon. Genet Resour Crop Evol 71, 1893–1909 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10722-023-01750-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10722-023-01750-1