Appraisal of Floral Variation in Interspecific Hybrids of Jatropha (Jatropha curcas L.)

Abstract

An attempt has been made to study the interspecific crosses of Jatropha for floral variation and understand its morphological architecture. Total 16 interspecific crosses were selected which involved 17 parents to study 14 floral traits. Highest mean for number of male flowers on coflorescence was observed in the cross Jc-8 x Int and Jc-38 x Int (21) and for female flowers was observed in the cross Jc-8 x Int (7) with the range of variation from 0 to 39 for male flower and female flower ranged from 0 to 11 over all the crosses under study. Highest ratio of male /female flower on main inflorescence was exhibited by cross Jc-37 x Int (13:2) whereas, lowest was exhibited by cross Jc-1 x Int (4:1). The flower colour exhibited a range of variation from pink, faded pink and white. Only 3 plants (4.6% plants) Viz., Dindori x Int, Dindori R-II x Int and SFRI-1 x Int were found to be of protandrous type whereas in other plants (95% plants) the maturation of female was earlier. Pollen fertility indicates the genetic variation within J. curcas and its pairing pattern with chromosome complement of J. integerrima, which requires further analysis to unveil the fact and to utilize the same future breeding.