Effects of Substrate and Mycorrhizal Inoculum on Stem Segment Cuttings of Pterocarpus Erinaceus Poir. (Fabaceae) in the Guinean Savannas Highlands of Cameroon

Pterocarpus erinaceus Poir. appears among the woody species of the Soudano-Guinean to Soudano-Sahelian zones with very high food, medicinal and commercial potential. This Fabaceae still lives in the wild and is overexploited. The objective of this study was to contribute to the domestication of this species through an inexpensive method, stem segment cuttings. The sand/sawdust and black soil/sawdust substrates were inoculated with 0.10, and 20 g of mycorrhizae. The experimental design was a split plot with 4 repetitions. The experimental unit was set at 10 cuttings. At the end of the experiment, the results obtained stipulate that the best substrate for the budding of stem segment cuttings (SSC) is the sand/sawdust mixture (25.00 ± 18.34%). The appropriate dose of mycorrhizae for budding is 10 g (23.75 ± 5.63%). For the height of the aerial axes, the satisfactory result is recorded in the dose of mycorrhizae 10 g (4.18 ± 2.52 cm). The most abundant number of leaves per aerial axes was obtained in the sand/sawdust substrate (2.36 ± 0.48), the analysis of variances did not show a significant effect (0.21 > 0.05) as well as for mycorrhizae (0.85 > 0.05). Concerning the rooting ability of the cuttings, it should be noted that the adequate substrate for the number of newly formed roots is the sand/sawdust mixture (25.00 ± 18.34%) while the dose of 10 g favored the appearance of roots (23.75 ± 14.07%). The best substrate for the length of newly formed roots is the sand/sawdust mixture (10.64 ± 7.14 cm) while the 10g dose improved the length (9.82 ± 6.40 cm) for Senegal rosewood. Given the above results, we can admit that the improvement of certain parameters in P. erinaceus is possible by vegetative propagation