How to Propagate Fruit Trees in Nigeria: Air Layering, Grafting, Budding and More
By Nicodemus Duru Agriculture • Education • Climate Action • WASH • Community Development Introduction Imagine taking a healthy branch from a mature mango tree, encouraging it to produce roots while it is still attached to the parent tree, and eventually planting it as a new tree. That may sound unusual, but it is a real agricultural technique known as air layering. I recently carried out an air-layering exercise and was excited to see healthy roots developing on the treated branch. The experience reminded me of an important lesson in agriculture: Sometimes, the fastest way to multiply a good plant is not to start from a seed. Fruit trees can be propagated in several ways, and the method chosen can influence how quickly the resulting plant matures, how closely it resembles the parent plant and, in some cases, how soon it can begin producing fruit. In this article, we explore practical methods of propagating fruit trees and take a closer look at why vegetative propagation can be v...