Judging by the response to comments about tropical fruit trees in the last E D Notes, many of you are including tropical fruit trees in you development efforts. I have used the FAO book Propagation of Tropical Fruit Trees to answer several of your questions. The first 172 pages of this book are part of a general how-to section covering such topics as: the nursery; propagation by seed; vegetative propagation; cuttings; polyembryony; grafting. Pages 184 to 556 give many practical details about propagation of particular species. For example, the topics covered in the 37 page treatment of cashew include: distribution and ecology; shoot growth; root growth; flowering and fruiting; diseases and pests; seedling variation and selection; seed ,quality and selection; seed treatment and storage; seed planting and germination; rootstocks; approach grafting; side grafting; veneer grafting; tip grafting; wedge grafting; budding; ground layering; air layering; films for wrapping air layers; propagation by cuttings; handling and transplanting young cashew trees. Other species covered (not all in such detail) include carambola, sugar apple, jackfruit, papaw, star apple, durian, rose apple, surinam cherry, mangosteen, langsat, Barbados cherry mango, sapodilla, jaboticabas, guava and several others.
Cite as:
ECHO Staff 1982. Propagation of Tropical Fruit Trees. ECHO Development Notes no. 2