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DEUTSCH-ÄTHIOPISCHER VEREIN E.V.
GERMAN ETHIOPIAN ASSOCIATION
www.deutsch-aethiopischer-verein.de
Diversität
Informationsblätter Oktober 2016 Seite 1 Deutsch-Äthiopischer Verein e.V.
Ausgabe Oktober 2016
Informationsblätter
Enset research in Ethiopia
Laila M. Karlsson (PhD) and Abitew Lagibo Dalbato
(PhD), Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Background
Enset, the botanical species Ensete ventricosum, has
been utilised as a crop in Ethiopia since ancient time.
Everyone who has been in Ethiopia has seen enset
plants: they are the large banana-look-alike plants (Fi-
gure 1, next page) that are grown in groups in parts of
countryside and there are often one or a few plants in
gardens around the country, also in Addis Ababa. Enset
is a multipurpose crop: food (from pseudostem and
corm), fodder (leaves and residues), fibres (pseudostem
and leaves) and traditional medicines (different land-
races and different parts of plants). However, despite its
close relation to banana, the fruits are not consumed:
enset fruits are full of large and very hard seeds, with
only little fruit flesh between. Enset propagation, ma-
nagement and food processing techniques rely on indi-
genous technical knowledge of farmers.
Enset grows readily in different agro-ecological zones of
Ethiopia and established plants, holding large amount of
water, withstands extended droughts. It is recently repor-
ted that it is the most efficient crop grown in Ethiopia re-
garding amount edible yield per time and area unit. In
enset agriculture, plants grow for about 3-6 years and
are planted and harvested individually the field is never
left bare. Therefore, the soil and local environment bene-
fit as from any perennial crop: avoiding erosion and kee-
ping nutrients and moisture. Similar to forests, enset can
be regarded a carbon dioxide sink, since the root system
is extensive and remain in soil for long after harvest.
The enset plant is not a tree according to botanical defi-
nition: the corm (underground) is the botanical stem,
anchored by the extensive root system. The apical meri-
stem, where new leaves develop (as in the top of a tree),
are in the top of the corm and therefore well protected
against drought or heat. The root system grows around
the year, and the fine roots grow most during dry sea-
son, showing enset's capacity to utilise its stored water
to grow and collect more water when needed. The
pseudostem is formed by dense layers of leaves
sheaths, and the blades spreads in top of it (Figure 1,
next page), with the youngest leaf always in the centre.
When the plant has reached certain size or age it will
flower. The flower stalk emerges from the apical meri-
stem, stretches through the pseudostem and appears in
the centre of the leaves (Figure 1, next page). It takes
several months from the first observed flower to mature
fruits. When plants are harvested for food production,
they are usually harvested at the onset of flowering,
which gives the highest yield.
As food crop, enset has values similar to potato. For a
balanced diet, it should be combined with protein and
different vitamins, which is facilitated by the fact that
enset is suitable for intercropping with for example peas
and beans; agroforestry with enset is one established
farming system. The most common enset food product,
kocho, is fermented pasta from pseudostem and corm
that benefits from the same characteristics as sourdough
bread and other lactic-fermented foods: inhibits growth
of pathogenic bacteria, extends product shelf-life while
ensuring consumer safety, and the perceived quality
even increases during storage.
Given all the above mentioned positive sides of enset
agriculture, it is logical to ask why the practice is not
more common and established in larger area. One rea-
son is the limited possibility to get agricultural advice for
enset, while annual cereals are given much attention
and are subjected to extension programmes. Further, as
there has not been genotype improvement such as con-
Inhalt:
Enset research in Ethiopia ..................................... 1
Recent Biosphere Reserve development
achievements in Ethiopia ................................. 5
Was ist los in Äthiopien? ....................................... 6
Replik: Was ist los in Äthiopien? .......................... 7
"Zu Fuß gegen Dersertifikation in Äthiopien" ...... 9
Licht für die Welt in Äthiopien ............................. 11
öhm Vocational
............................................................ 13
Windenergie für Tula / Äthiopien ......................... 15
Fistula e.V. Newsletter Sommer 2016 ............... 18
Bücher.................................................................... 20
Links ...................................................................... 21
Press Review ......................................................... 23
Diversität Enset Research in Ethiopia
Deutsch-Äthiopischer Verein e.V. Seite 2 Informationsblätter Oktober 2016
scious breeding of enset, farmers use the same land-
races as always. Recently, ARC (Areka Research
Centre; the national centre for enset research) selected
six of the landraces for different agronomic performan-
ces and released as cultivars. Since enset is utilised as
a crop only in Ethiopia, there is little possibility to utilise
findings from other parts of the world, and the research
on agricultural practice and development has been
limited. Our aims are to contribute with findings relevant
for direct implementation in production and to establish
knowledge for further improvement of the crop.
Figure 1. Mature Enset plant. The corm (the botanical
stem) is underground, the pseudostem is layers of
leaves sheaths with the youngest leaf in the centre and
the inflorescence (many small flowers at base of the
bracts, the bracts looks like one large flower) on a long
flower stalk emerging from the corm. Drawing: Laila
Karlsson.
Experiments
In 2010, together with Ethiopian colleagues Dr. Tamado
Tana (Haramaya University) and Mikias Yeshitila (ARC)
we established an enset research area at Wolaita Sodo
University campus (N 06°50'00'', E 37°45'07'', 1882 m
a.s.l.), about 300 km south of Addis Ababa, in a region
where enset is traditionally grown as food crop. A ca.
25×25 m plot was protected from animals, especially
porcupines, by fence (150 cm high, 25 cm into soil) and
ditch 50 cm wide and 30 cm deep.
Sprouts from corms
The traditional way to propagate enset is to take a corm,
cut off the apical meristem and bury it in the soil. The
corm will react in the same way as a pelargonium that
got its tip cut off: it will produce side-shoots. Each such
enset shoot can be planted separately and become a
new plant, having the same genome as the parent plant,
since the propagation is a way to clone the original plant.
From ARC we got corms from the six released cultivars:
Endale, Gewada, Kelisa, Mesena, Yanbule and Zerita.
When farmers plant the corms they use different
methods, and all farmers claim they use the best
method. Therefore, we wanted to compare three
common pre-treatments of corms.
The studied pre-treatments were to keep the corm en-
tire, part it in halves and part it in quarters (Figure 2).
Each corm also had the apical meristem removed, and
three corms to each pre-treatment of each cultivar were
used. Holes were dug 40 cm deep and 50 cm in
diameter, refilled with 10 cm softened top soil, the corm
thereon and above it 15 L of 50/50 % mix of dry cow
manure and soil, then levelling with remaining soil and
dry grass on top for shade. After 50 days, with only very
little rain, sprouts begun to emerge.
Figure 2. Zemach Chelo (research technician) with enset
corms parted in halves or quarters before burial for
sprout production. Photo: Laila Karlsson.
Since farmers have told us that it is impossible to water
on planted corms, they say they will rotten, we wanted to
test that. In addition to the above procedure, we used
nine corms of one cultivar (Zerita) to repeat the study
with the same pre-treatments and planting procedure but
in addition water each corm with 5 L of water every day
until rainy period.
At planting it was dry period (January) and very little rain
came until late April, when all corms had sprouted with
at least one new shoot. The sprouts were allowed to
grow attached to corms during the main rainy season,
until mid-October. At that time, there were many and
large sprouts (Figure 3).
Regardless of pre-treatment and cultivar, the seven lar-
gest sprouts from each corm had an average circum-
ference of 28.7 cm nine months after burial; thus, they
were really large plants after short time. The results
showed that shoots from corms parted in smaller pieces
emerged sooner (average 61, 70 and 85 days for first
emergence from corms parted in quarters, halves or kept
entire), and had more sprouts (average 80, 66 and 26 for
corms parted in quarters, halves or kept entire). The
drawback with parting corms in smaller pieces is if there
is unusual prolonged drought, since an entire corm will
keep its moisture better.
Enset Research in Ethiopia Diversität
Informationsblätter Oktober 2016 Seite 3 Deutsch-Äthiopischer Verein e.V.
Figure 3. The authors with 4405 enset sprouts from 63
corms, nine months after burial and six months after
sprout emergence. Photo: Getachew Kefita.
The watered corms did not rotten; instead they emerged
earlier (average over the three pre-treatments were 62
days compared to 73) and the sprouts were more equal-
sized (standard deviation 1.5 dm3 compared to 2.2).
Thus, if a farmer has access to a water source, planted
enset corms can, without any risk, be given water if
unexpected prolonged drought occurs after corm burial
for propagation.
The sprouts were larger than expected, and farmers
were amazed. Sprouts of different sizes were planted
individually, and there were clear correlation between
planting size and plant size even after three years of
growth, showing that it is beneficial to achieve large
sprouts initially.
New genotypes from seeds
Cross-fertilisation, seed setting and germination is the
way nature achieves new genotypes, and among these
new seedlings the most suitable in the present environ-
ment will give most offspring to the future. This has been
utilised for conscious breeding since the rise of agri-
culture 10,000 years ago, and could also be used to
develop new enset cultivars. Since enset is usually
propagated through cloning, before seed set, it is neces-
sary to make agreement with individual farmers to keep
certain plants until seed maturation and to search for
wild plants with mature seeds. This study was done to
get knowledge on seed germination and seedling
growth.
To study seed germination and growth of seedlings,
seeds from eleven enset plants, wild and cultivated,
were collected. The seeds have very hard seed coat,
and they are impermeable to water except at thin
channels at one side of the seed. We included several
physical and chemical treatments known to weaken
different kinds of seed coats, but none of these had any
positive effect on germination. Thus, the water uptake
through the thin channels should be the natural way
before seeds germinate. When we placed seeds on
moist sand, germination varied from 5 to 55% for seeds
from different mother plants, with no significant
difference between wild and cultivated origin. More re-
search is needed to investigate if there is possibility to
get higher and even germination percentage or if the
germinability is naturally low and varied.
For the germinated seedlings, growth was very efficient
(Figure 4). They grew well in natural local soil but growth
was enhanced if given manure as for corm burial.
Figure 4. Enset seeds, newly germinated, three week
seedlings and 21 months after germination with
inflorescence, and the authors. Photo: the authors.
Conclusions and future research
The experiments with propagation from corms show
clearly that knowledge of great importance for small-
holder farmers can be achieved without advanced
research techniques.
The results of corm pre-treatment and watering are
directly useful and can be communicated to farmers, and
there is a brochure in Amharic that can be used by
agricultural advisors. Further studies should be done on
details in amount of manure and to what extent digging
large and deep hole is required, but currently the advice
to follow our method is useful. Probably the large sprout
sizes were connected to the fact that we put effort in
digging large holes and put back softened soil for the
corms to sprout into (the soil is naturally quite hard and
compact) and that we placed dry manure direct in
contact with the corm; the belief among farmers is that
this will cause rotting and they put instead soil on corm
and manure on soil surface. However, we used dry,
pulverised manure and mixed with 50 % soil, which
should allow the new developing roots easy access to
nutrients and thus favour strong growth without risk of
causing rotting.
More research is needed on germination, and it is also
needed to study flowering, pollination, fertilisation and
seed set to be able to deliberately cross between
genotypes in a desired and controlled way. However, it
Diversität Enset Research in Ethiopia
Deutsch-Äthiopischer Verein e.V. Seite 4 Informationsblätter Oktober 2016
shall not be forgotten that there are already six
registered cultivars (selected from old landraces and
very suitable for kocho and other uses) and many
additional utilised landraces. However, as for all crops it
is important to not lose the natural gene pool, and by
utilising the variation existing among wild plants for
crossing with selected landraces, it should be possible to
increase the number of cultivars to choose from in the
future.
Literature
Brandt SA, Spring A, Hiebsch C, McCabe JT, Tabogie E,
Diro M, Wolde-Michael G, Yntiso G, Shiegeta M,
-
Based Agricultural Systems in Ethiopia. American
Association for the Advancement of Science,
Washington.
Karlsson LM, Dalbato AL, Tamado T, Mikias Y (2012)
Brochures in Amharic and English:
http://www.lailakarlsson.se/research.php#drought
Karlsson LM, Dalbato AL, Tamado T, Mikias Y (2015)
Effect of cultivar, traditional corm pre-treatment and
watering on sprouting and early growth of Ensete
ventricosum suckers. Experimental Agriculture 51:232
243.
Karlsson LM, Tamado T, Dalbato AL, Mikias Y (2013)
Seed morphology and germination of Ensete
ventricosum (Musaceae). Seed Science and Technology
41:357 370.
Karlsson LM, Tamado T, Dalbato AL, Mikias Y (2013)
Early growth and development of Ensete ventricosum
(Musaceae) seedlings. Journal of Plant Sciences 1:11
17.
Mohammed B, Gabel M, Karlsson LM (2013) Nutritive
values of the drought tolerant food and fodder crop
enset. African Journal of Agricultural Research 8:2326
2333.
Tsegaye A, Struik PC (2001) Enset (Ensete ventricosum
(Welw.) Cheesman) kocho yield under different crop
establishment methods as compared to yields of other
carbohydrate-rich food crops. Netherlands Journal of
Agricultural Science 49:81 94.
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