Multifunctional Agriculture

Chapter 27

The Participatory Domestication of West African Indigenous Fruits

This chapter was previously published in Leakey, R.R.B., Schreckenberg, K., Tchoundjeu, Z., 2003. International Forestry Review, 5, 338–347, with permission from Commonwealth Forestry Association

Abstract

This study obtained quantitative data on fruit and nut traits in two indigenous fruit trees from West Africa (Irvingia gabonensis and Dacryodes edulis), which have led to the identification of trees meeting ideotypes based on multiple morphological, quality and food property traits desirable in putative cultivars. The same data also indicate changes in population structure that provide pointers to the level of domestication already achieved by subsistence farmers. Dacryodes ...