I plan to casually select and improve Marula a dioecious species.
How i see it is I have about fifty trees and should have space to plant them out soon. I would then see which ones were best and cull the worst say 70% and graft seedlings from the best 30% onto them. Then just keep doing this for many years and hopefully get some nicer fruit over time. This would just be for hobby reasons as I am an amateur. I don't expect professional or dramatic results but even slight improvement s would be really awesome. I am 29 now so should have quite a few years to have fun with this:)
I have some questions though for the more knowledgeable here
:
1. Is there a better way to do this than described? I know the attributes I would want, namely: bigger fruit, better flesh to seed ratio, less cling on seed. I already love the natural wild taste so any of these attributes improving even a little would be great!
2. Is this population big enough? Would say 100 trees get me better chances?
I could do many more trees in very large containers but my assumption was in ground trees would be a better bet.
3.How the he'll do you select for the males? It must matter what males you decide to get rid of or keep but I have no idea how you would make this decision.
This is really interesting to me so any insights or advice would be cool
P.S - One last question
All my plants come from local populations would it be worth it try source seeds from far away, maybe more north into Africa for genetic diversity?
I have tried and failed to source from already improved plants but maybe I could catch a break in the future.