Scientists clone Southern Africa’s wild fruit trees as forests disappear

Plant geneticists in Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia and Tanzania have spent more than two decades cloning wild loquat and other miombo fruit trees at field gene banks, after discovering the trees take around 17 years to fruit from seed, too slow for communities to bother planting them. Grafting and air layering cut that to four or five years, and the Landscape Alliance plans to distribute 800 scions to 200 Malawian farmers in December.

The stakes were made plain in 2024 when loggers cut down prized cloned trees at a Zimbabwe gene bank to burn as fuel for brick kilns, robbing local fruit sellers of income overnight. A recent study found more than 500,000 square kilometers of miombo woodland, nearly 22% of the region's cover, was lost between 2000 and 2023, with Malawi and Zimbabwe hit hardest.

Researchers say duplicate specimens surviving in other countries' gene banks are now functioning as a backup system for genetic material that could otherwise vanish entirely, while conservationists also flag threats from church groups clearing ground beneath trees for worship.

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