Tamarind monograph.pdf - Crops for the Future
Tamarind monograph.pdf - Crops for the Future
Tamarind monograph.pdf - Crops for the Future
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4.3 Soil Requirements<br />
The tamarind tree can grow in a wide range of soils (Chaturvedi, 1985;<br />
Sozolnoki, 1985) and has been suggested by Sozolnoki (1985) and Galang<br />
(1955) to have no specific soil requirement. With little or no cultivation it<br />
can flourish in poor soils and on rocky terrain. In India, it tolerates sodic and<br />
saline soils where it grows in ravines and on degraded land (Anon, 1991).<br />
Older plants are more resistant to salinity than seedlings and have been<br />
found growing close to <strong>the</strong> sea (NAS, 1979; Pongskul et al., 1988; Anon,<br />
1991). In fact, in nor<strong>the</strong>ast Thailand, tamarind has been reported to establish<br />
naturally in areas with recently salinised soils (Nemoto et al.,1987). Dwivedi<br />
et al. (1996) concluded during pot experiments that tamarind could grow in<br />
soil containing up to 45% exchangeable sodium. El-Siddig et al., (2004 a,<br />
2004 b) investigated germination and seedling establishment in saline media<br />
and found a slight delay in emergence but no effect on seedling growth with<br />
up to 30 mM NaC1. Any detrimental effects with higher salt levels were<br />
mainly due to accumulated ions. Gebauer et al., (2001) suggested that<br />
tamarind seedlings can tolerate salinity up to 80 mM NaCl as a result of <strong>the</strong>ir<br />
ability to avoid excess ion accumulation through increased leaf volumes<br />
associated with succulence.<br />
However, tamarind, thrives best in loamy, deep, well drained alluvial soil,<br />
which favours <strong>the</strong> development of a long tap root (Galang, 1955). Silt-clay<br />
and clay soils were not condusive to plantations of tamarind in Mali (Kelly<br />
and Cuny, 2000) but red sandy loam soils in Andhra Pradesh, India were<br />
(Rao et al., 2000).<br />
The tree does not tolerate water-logging (Relwani, 1993; Vogt 1995). In<br />
Africa, <strong>the</strong> tree is reported to grow near ant-hills or termite mounds, which<br />
indicates its preference <strong>for</strong> well aerated soils (Dalziel, 1937; Eggeling and<br />
Dale, 1951; Irvine, 1961; Allen and Allen, 1981). The optimum pH <strong>for</strong><br />
tamarind is 5.5-6.8, which is slightly acidic (FAO, 1988), though it also<br />
grows well in alkaline soils (Singh et al., 1997, quoted from Rao et al.,<br />
1999). It has been suggested (Jansen, 1981) that its association with ant-hills<br />
and termite mounds may also be due to a preference <strong>for</strong> a slight lime content<br />
in <strong>the</strong> soil.<br />
4.4 <strong>Tamarind</strong> as a component of vegetation<br />
In Africa tamarind is typically a scattered tree of <strong>the</strong> savannah but it is<br />
intimately related to people and habitations which provide a degree of<br />
protection because of <strong>the</strong> uses made of <strong>the</strong> tree. Ethnobotanical and o<strong>the</strong>r<br />
surveys confirm this in Nor<strong>the</strong>rn Cameroon (Tchiegang – Megueni et al.,<br />
2001), North-east Nigeria (Lockett et al., 2000), Benin (Codjia et al., 2003),<br />
Burkino Faso (Kristersen and Lykke, 2003), Sudan (El – Siddig et al., 1999),<br />
Sou<strong>the</strong>rn Malawi (Maliro and Kwapata, 2002), Kenya (Muok et al., 2000)<br />
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