Agricultural Sciences

Volume 7, Issue 9 (September 2016)

ISSN Print: 2156-8553   ISSN Online: 2156-8561

Google-based Impact Factor: 1.01  Citations  h5-index & Ranking

Local Practices and Knowledge Associated with Date Palm Cultivation in Southeastern Niger

HTML  XML Download Download as PDF (Size: 4101KB)  PP. 586-603  
DOI: 10.4236/as.2016.79056    2,168 Downloads   5,205 Views  Citations

ABSTRACT

The date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.), a dioecious species, is of particular interest in the Sahel due to its phenological plasticity in relation to climate change and its double-flowering capacity. This article explores local practices and knowledge associated with date palm cultivation in the oasis basins of southeastern Niger, and provides an inventory of local seed propagated varieties, for more effectively guiding agricultural research and the breeding of this species. We carried out a survey of 30 date palm growers in 14 villages of the Manga region. The qualitative data of the survey were processed by a Multiple Correspondence Analysis. We inventoried 19 date palm varieties, for which the main distinctive criterion was fruit colour, but some other criteria such as biology or provenance were also used. The cultural practices and knowledge associated with the date palm in Manga have improved since the 1990s. They also depend on ethnic groups and the importance they assign to farming compared to livestock rearing and trading activities. The type of basin (high, intermediate, or low water table) influences growers’ practices and perceptions. Lastly, the date harvest in the wet season is abundant, but of mediocre quality, whereas it is the opposite for the dry season harvest. To conclude, sustainable development of date palm cultivation in the Sahel zone relies firstly on the selection of varieties that are early fruit producers or that can complete fruit maturation during the raining season and secondly on technical capacity building for producers.

Share and Cite:

Zango, O. , Rey, H. , Bakasso, Y. , Lecoustre, R. , Aberlenc, F. and Pintaud, J. (2016) Local Practices and Knowledge Associated with Date Palm Cultivation in Southeastern Niger. Agricultural Sciences, 7, 586-603. doi: 10.4236/as.2016.79056.

Cited by

[1] Agrobiodiversity and Sustainability of Oasis Agrosystems in Palm Groves of Sahara and Sahel in Chad
Journal of Agricultural …, 2022
[2] Gender Determination of Date Palm
2021
[3] Summar Abbas Naqvi, Waqar Shafqat, Muhammad Salman Haider, Faisal Saeed Awan, Iqrar Ahmad Khan, and
2021
[4] Impact of Cultural Practice, Socio-economic Level and Environment on the Profitability of the Date Palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) in Niger (West Africa)
2020
[5] On the necessity of combining ethnobotany and genetics to assess agrobiodiversity and its evolution in crops: A case study on date palms (Phoenix dactylifera L.) in …
2020
[6] Karakterisasi Morfologi dan Komponen Hasil Cabai Rawit (Capsicum frutescens L.) Asal Pulau Timor
2019
[7] Integration of ethnobotany and population genetics uncovers the agrobiodiversity of date palms of Siwa Oasis (Egypt) and their importance to the evolutionary history …
Balthazard, V Battesti, S Ivorra, L Paradis… - bioRxiv, 2019
[8] Genetic diversity of Southeastern Nigerien date palms reveals a secondary structure within Western populations
Tree Genetics & Genomes, 2017
[9] PHYTOCHEMICALS CONTENT, ICP-OES METALS DETERMINATION AND PROTECTIVE EFFECT OF CONSUMPTION OF DATES ROBE ON ANEMIA DISEASE …

Journals Menu
Follow SCIRP
Contact us
+1 323-425-8868
customer@scirp.org
WhatsApp +86 18163351462(WhatsApp)
Click here to send a message to me 1655362766
Paper Publishing WeChat

Copyright © 2024 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc.

Creative Commons License

This work and the related PDF file are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.