Improving indigenous knowledge of propagation for the development of Enset agriculture: promoting farmers’ adaptation capacity to climate change

In order to provide knowledge for enset agriculture, seed germination, seedling development and vegetative reproduction were studied to envisage improved cultivars by crossing and selection and to enhance onfarm practices by acknowledging and evaluating farmers’ indigenous knowledge. Seed set vary considerably for enset, and the factors influencing fruit and seed developments should be studied further. Seed germination vary between seed lots from different mother plants, and requires additional studies even though placing the seeds on moist sand gives some germination from most seed lots. There was informal information that corms buried for vegetative reproduction would rotten if manure was applied directly on them or if they were watered. However, these two treatments gave large and strong suckers. When the corm was split in smaller (about 1 dm3) pieces, emergence was quicker and total production was higher than if the corm was kept entire. However, if there is risk for extended drought, using an entire corm is preferred for its water holding capacity. In the case of complete absence or little precipitation, watering on buried corm is beneficial if water is accessible.Keywords/phrases: Conventional breeding, Seed germination, Seed morphology, Seedling, Vegetative propagatio

Effect of manure amount and improved application technique at corm burial on the propagation of enset (Ensete ventricosum) suckers

Ensete ventricosum (enset) has been cultivated in Ethiopia since ancient times. It is a multipurpose, drought tolerant and food security crop. When burying enset corms for vegetative propagation, manure is usually placed on the soil surface. However, there is no research-based evidence to justify this practice. We hypothesised that enset sucker production would be enhanced by placing manure in the corm burial hole. We tested this hypothesis, investigated manure application rates per buried corm and tested the effect of supplying a small amount of inorganic fertilizer. Three enset cultivars (Endale, Gewada and Yanbule) were used. Ninety corm halves were buried in separate holes (N = 3), resulting in 1,389 individually recorded suckers. There were significantly more suckers and a larger total biomass when manure was placed with the corm than when spread on the top of the soil, thus corroborating the main hypothesis. The number of suckers and the biomass increased with increasing amounts of air-dried cow manure up to 4.0 kg DW per burial hole, while the size of the three largest suckers per buried corm increased further with 6.0 kg DW of manure. Supplying a smaller amount of manure (2.0 kg DW) or equal nitrogen amount from inorganic fertilizer increased the production, compared to the treatment with no fertilizer. In conclusion, we recommend that farmers should ideally bury the corm with 7-11 dm3 of air-dried pulverized manure, thoroughly mixed with field soil; if manure is in short supply, burying even a small amount of it with the corm is beneficial