The Phenological Characterization of Calotropis procera (Ait) and its Potential for Domestication for Wool Production in Drylands

Nowadays, attention is being paid to exploration of possibilities of exploiting new and under-utilized plant resources with the aim of meeting the growing societal needs. Calotropis procera is one among the many under-utilized species despite its many economic and ecological uses. This study was done to characterize the phenology of the species and determine its potential for domestication for wool production. Phenological data was used to generate charts that depicted the flowering and fruiting phenophases for three provenances for four seasons. The data was subjected to Test of Homogeneity of Variances to isolate significant differences in study parameters. Spearman rank pair-wise correlations between wet seasons and flowering were done. Flowering intensity in different months of the year was significantly different (p<0.05) with clear-cut flowering phenophases. Flowering and fruiting durations and active phases were significantly longer and high (p<0.001) during the wet seasons and spearman rank correlations between wet seasons and flowering ranged from 0.89 to 0.96 and were highly significant (rs, pair-wise correlations, p<0.0001). A very low flower to fruit ratio was recorded. The study concluded that C. procera can do well as a plantation crop and has a high potential for production of wool. The strongest impediment to flowering and fruiting was periodic attack by Aphis nerii. It is recommended that propagation seeds for C. procera should be sourced from the local provenances to reduce the effects of seed source transfer distance.