Abstract

Nigeria is endowed with many indigenous leaf vegetables (ILVs) species, which spread across the estimated cultivable land area of 71.2 million hectares. These ILVs provide food, income, employment and herbal medicine to the population. Uncollected and uncharacterized germplasm, pests, diseases, anti-nutritional factors, recalcitrant seed, seed dormancy and perishable produce militate against the realization of potentials of the ILVs. This paper discusses biotechnological applications such as meristem culture, in vitro selection, zygotic embryo culture, somatic embryo genesis, protoplast culture, anther culture and genetic engineering that can solve improvement and production problems associated with some selected ILVs. Among the problems envisaged in the application of these biotechnological techniques are lacks of resources, selections of crop for research, attitude of government and weather conditions.

Key words: Indigenous leaf vegetables, biotechnology, production problems.