Jackfruit diversity of East Garo Hills, Meghalaya- an empirical study

Abstract

A study was carried out to assess the morphological variability of jackfruits grown in the East Garo Hills district of Meghalaya, India and to identifygenotypes suitable for chips making and starch extraction. In Garo Hills, usually seeds are used to propagate jackfruit, which causes wide genetic variations among the different jackfruit trees.More than 50 homestead grown jackfruits were surveyed out of which 13 elitejackfruits of regular bearing habit were selected for further detailed characterization. Ninetyone quantitative, qualitative and biochemical parameters of each tree were studied to characterize the jackfruit accessions. Out of the 91 parameters studied, 29 qualitative charecters, 11 qualitative charecters and 5 biochemical parameters are presented in this paper. Considerable variations were observed among the selected trees with regard to fruit yield, fruit size, fruit shape, fruit weight, flake shape, flake thickness, seed shape, seed length, seed width, flake/seed ratio, seed coat colour, 100-seed weight etc. Different fruit shape viz. ellipsoid (46.15 %), clavate (23.08 %), oblong (23.08 %) and irregular (7.70 %) shapes were observed. The yield ranged from 60-200 nos. of fruits per tree weighing 346.2 to 1317.6 kg per tree per year. Considering all the morphological and biochemical parameters it was observed that of all the 13 jackfruit genotypes, two trees viz. EGHJ-3 and EGHJ-12 produced non juicy, firm flaked texture with reasonably good flake thickness, flake:fruit ratio and flake:seed ratio. This is a desirable character for preparation of jackfruit chips. The fruits of EGHJ-12 also produced largest seeds as compared to other genotypes, which qualifies it to be a potential genotype for starch extraction.