Abstract
This research investigated the morphological characteristic variation among West African provenances of Moringa oleifera in order to select the most suitable provenance for planting in Burkina Faso. A provenance experiment involving seven provenances from Burkina Faso, one from Mali, one Ivory Coast and one from Ghana was established in June 2014 in a randomized complete block design with three replications at Ouagadougou in the North Sudanese area of Burkina Faso. Plant growth traits (height, number of branches and pinnae, leaf length and width) and biomass production (above and underground biomass dry weight, under: aboveground ratio and total dry weight) were measured on two-week old and two-month old seedlings. The result indicates no significant correlation between morphological characteristics and agroclimatic data (longitude, altitude and annual rainfall) of the seed origin. Significant variations between provenances for morphological characteristics and biomass production (P ≤ 0.05) were observed. Two-month old M. oleifera exhibited significant differences between provenances (P ≤ 0.05). The average height ranged from 107-40 cm, number of branches from 15-8, number of pinnae per leaf from 12-5, leaf length from 44-16 cm and leaves width from 105-34 cm. The aboveground biomass productions ranged from 1-14 g, underground biomass production from 1-7 g, ratio of under: aboveground from 0.4-0.9 and total dry weight from 2-21 g. Five provenances from Burkina Faso (Gaoua and Dano in the South Sudanese area, Ouagadougou, Fada N’Gourma and CNSF in the North Sudanese area) and one from Ivory Coast (Niangon-Lokoua/Abidjan) in the sub equatorial area) showed superior performances. They can be recommended for planting in Ouagadougou and other areas with similar ecological conditions. Key words: Leaves, pinnae, agroclimatic, correlation, aboveground and underground biomass.
Highlights
Moringa (Moringa oleifera Lam.) in the family Moringaceae is a plant indigenous to the sub-Himalayan regions in Northwestern India currently found in numerous countries situated in the tropical and
The study was conducted at the women gardening center “Amicale des Forestières du Burkina Faso (AMIFOB)” located at Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (12°7’32’’N, 01°40’24’’W)
This study evaluates the variations in morphological characteristics of the growth of 11 provenances of M. oleifera from different geoclimatic conditions of West Africa in order to select the seed sources suitable for plantation establishment under North Sudanese environmental conditions in Burkina Faso
Summary
Sub-tropical regions across Africa, South East Asia and South America (Paliwal et al, 2011; Leone et al, 2015); where it is commonly used for animal forage, nutrition, medicine and water purification oil (Manh et al, 2005; Rashid et al, 2008). It is a fast growing, small to medium sized tree ranging between 5 and 12 m in height and tree canopy has an umbrella shaped crown with bi-(tri)pinnate leaves, while the individual leaflets have a leaf area of one to two cm (Muhl et al, 2011). The tree bears 20 to 30 cm long fruit that once mature, change colour from green to brown revealing numerous round or triangular seeds with three papery wings (Arbonnier, 2002)
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