Local soil fungi help shea tree seedlings survive grafting better
Mycorrhizal Networks
Shea trees anchor food and income across West African farms through shea butter, but they're notoriously slow and unreliable to propagate, so a soil fungus that speeds up seedling growth and graft success could make replanting this keystone tree far more practical for smallholder nurseries.
Shea trees are a big deal in West Africa: they take forever to grow and are tricky to graft onto new rootstock, which slows down efforts to plant more of them. Scientists tried mixing different local soil samples, each carrying its own community of helpful root fungi, into the soil of young shea seedlings before grafting. One particular mix, made from soil taken from around existing shea trees, produced the biggest seedlings and the highest graft success rate, suggesting the right fungal partners could make shea nurseries more productive.
Key Findings
M3 inoculum (from Vitellaria paradoxa rhizosphere soil) produced the highest mycorrhizal colonization frequency and intensity at 16 months, alongside the highest graft success rate at 90 days post-grafting
M1 and M3 treatments produced the largest seedlings by height and collar diameter after 9 months of growth
Graft success was statistically tied to treatment identity itself rather than to collar diameter, and the non-amended control had the lowest graft success of all groups
chevron_right Technical Summary
Researchers found that inoculating young shea trees with certain local soil fungi improved their growth and made grafting onto them more successful, which could help farmers propagate this important West African tree faster and more reliably.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Enhancing growth and graft success of shea (Vitellaria paradoxa C.F. Gaertn) through targeted inoculation with indigenous arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi
Abstract Vitellaria paradoxa is a keystone species in West African agroforestry systems, but its regeneration is constrained by slow juvenile growth and low graft success. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fu...
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
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Vitellaria paradoxa, commonly known as shea tree, shi tree, or vitellaria, is a tree of the family Sapotaceae. It is the only species in the genus Vitellaria, and is indigenous to Africa.