Baobab Diversity, Seed Germination and Early Growth

Abstract

The diversity in baobab was studied on 75 trees located at Adaklu District and Ho and Hohoe Municipalities. Thirteen morphological traits were used in the characterisation based on Bioversity descriptors for baobab. GenStat edition 12 was used to analyse the diversity as well as germination and growth data. Group average hierarchical clustering with Jaccard similarity coefficient discriminated among most of the baobab trees. Clustering was not based on location although few trees that were not discriminated were from the same communities. The clustering can be used in selecting trees for further studies and domestication. Germination tests were conducted with soaked, boiled and sulphuric acid treated seeds. Only the sulphuric acid treated seeds had germination significantly higher than the control. More studies should be done to find easier way of breaking seed dormancy of baobab. There were significant differences in 100 seed weight, seed length and thickness among seeds from three different trees. However, there were no significant difference in seed width of the same sample. Seed size traits should be considered in selecting baobab for domestication because of the high variability revealed. Observation on seedling growth revealed less than 10 leaves in the first month and increased to about 20 in the fourth month. Growth in girth was 5mm and 8mm in the first and fourth months respectively. Seedling height of 17cm in the first month reached 40cm in four months. Information from this research is valuable for further work on domestication of baobab.