Agronomic and Yield-related Traits of Jatropha curcas

Abstract

The biodiesel production potential from inexpensive, non-edible, and non-conventional bioenergy crops, such as Jatropha (Jatropha curcas L.), has attracted the attention of many researchers, policymakers, and industries globally. Jatropha is considered to be the second-generation biofuel feedstocks for biodiesel production. Twenty-one accessions of J. curcas were used in this study. The accessions came from eight different countries. Nine accessions are from Malaysia (UKMJC02, 03, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12, 17, 21), three from Indonesia (UKMJC 13, 18, 20), two each from Thailand (UKMJC01, 04), India (UKMJC14, 19) and the Philippines (UKMJC07, 15) and one each from South Africa (UKMJC16), Cape Verde (UKMJC05) and Vietnam (UKMJC06). All traits measured were subjected to analysis of variance. The accessions were UKM JC 02, 03, 06, 11, 15, 16 and UKM JC 18. UKM JC 17 showed the other kind of flower distribution pattern where the value was high in December 2013 and decreased constantly in the subsequent months. Temperature and rainfall may have influenced the number of flowers per inflorescence as the highest rainfall of 228 mm was recorded by Jabatan Meteorology Malaysia in December 2014, 145 mm in December 2013 and 22 mm in Jun 2015. Future research should focus on developing, optimizing, and modernizing the technologies involving seed collection, the processing of seeds, oil extraction, and the production of biodiesel.