ISSN 2360-7971
Abstract: The demand for shea has grown up to 600% in the last 20 years while tree populations are declining at an annual rate of 0.05 per hectare. If current trends continue, there will be a supply shortage in Nigeria. On this note, there is an urgent need to supply farmers with grafted seedlings of short gestation period and high yield. We used screenhouse for grafted shea seedlings, grafted shea seedlings planted in open field and shea seeds directly sowed in nursery bags in the field had been studied. The results revealed that scions collected from shea parkland accessions with the best agronomic traits were grafted in screenhouse. Some of the grafted were transferred to open field. The third had the seeds directly sowed in nursery bags in the field. After six months trial, the highest mean survival and mortality rates for grafted shea seedlings in screenhouse were 93.6 and 6.4%. Followed by grafted shea seedlings transferred to open field with 19.1 and 80.9 had the highest mortality rate and seeds directly sowed in the field using nursery bags 94.7 and 5.1% had the highest survival rate respectively. The average mean screenhouse temperature at midday was 38.30C, open field 32.80C and screenhouse cooling 27.30C. The screenhouse temperature were normalized in comparison to the open field by opening the doors, watering and cross ventilation. It controlled unfavorable weather condition that won’t stress the plant, protection against flood hazards, insects, and rodents. The differentiated grafted shea seedlings in screenhouse at 3 months old were transplanted to the field. However, direct seeds sowed would have long gestation period. The grafted shea seedlings raised in screenhouse and open field would have short gestation period. The grafted shea seedlings exhibited better agronomic traits for quality seedlings multiplication for farmers in Nigeria.
Keywords: Accession, Grafting, Shea tree, Multiplication, Seeds, Traits, Screenhouse