KOLA
Scarification technique has been established to facilitate
rapid
and uniform germination of kola nuts for seedling production.
- An improved kola planting materials can now be raised by using standard propagation techniques (seeds or vegetative means) developed by CRIN.
- Budded seedlings fruit in about four years while unbudded seedlings fruit six to seven years after transplanting. The are produced as quite hard nuts. These can be of various colours but are all about 2-3 in (5-7.5 cm) long. Peak production does not start until the tree reaches 15 years of age. Estimates for the number of nuts produced annually per tree vary due to the age and location of the trees. The nuts are generally produced between November and December for C. nitida and from April to July for C. acuminata. Studies show that up to 50% of trees of C. nitida (local kola) yield only 0 -100 nuts per year and that 72% of the total yield is produced by only 21% of the trees. Thus, -1 the national average yield of kola is estimated at 500kg ha(250 nuts/tree) of fresh nuts per annum.
- Promising hybrids of improved Cola nitida (Kola) have been developed; these hybrids produce in five years with an annual average yield of about 2,000 nuts/tree/year of marketable sizes (12-15g) compared with 250nuts/tree/year of the unselected materials used by the farmers presently.
- Additional high yielding C. nitida and C. acuminata genotypes have been selected from farmers' farms.
- Vegetative propagation techniques (grafting, budding, marcotting and cutting) for kola have been developed whereby the vegetatively propagated materials start to produce fruits in about three years after planting compared with the seven years gestation period of seedlings.
- Scarification technique has been established to facilitate rapid and uniform germination of kola nuts for seedling production.
- The on-shelf hand pollination technique has been used to identify and/or confirm sterility or incompatibility towards rehabilitation of old moribund farms and for solving problems of sudden occurrence of unproductivity in farmers' orchards.
- Some alternative insecticides, Basuden 600 EC and Cymbush 10EC and Decis 12EC, have been found to be effective in protecting kola in the field to replace the hazardous Gammalin 20EC and other hitherto proscribed insecticides.
Dr K.B Adejobi
Kola Programme Leader
