Abstract:
Macadamia, a member of the family Proteaceae, is widely grown in Kenya as an alternative cash crop
to tea and coffee, but varieties adapted to different agro-ecological zones are still lacking. Macadamia
breeders require high genetic diversity to select and recombine favorable traits through cross-breeding
and hence the need for in situ conservation of existing germplasm. A survey was done to assess the
variability that exists in farmers’ field and how well they can differentiate between different
macadamia types and to locate valuable germplasm for further evaluation and conservation. A total of
185 farmers were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire and descriptive statistics was done
using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS). The survey results indicated that only 10.3% of the
respondents could differentiate Macadamia types, by species, among them only 2.8% could do so by
varieties, indicating a limited knowledge on Macadamia morphology. Nut characteristics (97.3%)
followed by leaf characteristics (88.0%) and yield (88.0%) were the morphological markers mostly
used by farmers. Detailed morphological and molecular characterization of some selected promising
accessions is ongoing. Hence, there is a need for farmers’ training on morphological markers that could
be used to select valuable Macadamia germplasm for conservation in situ.
