Biodiversity of Woodapple (Feronia limonia L.) in Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh

Abstract

Bundelkhand region is rich in biodiversity for wood apple but less harnessed. The agro-climatic conditions of Bundelkhand have great potential for its commercial cultivation. Keeping these points in view, twenty-five genotypes of wood apple, fruit sample with shoot were collected from diverse areas of Bundelkhand region of utter Pradesh and analysed for various physic-chemical attributes and results of study revealed wide range of variability in morphological quantitative qualitative and biochemical etc. The quantitative variability of different genotypes in wood apple viz for fruit length (4.22 cm to 7.46 cm), fruit width (3.06 cm to 6.41 cm), shell thickness (0.10 cm to 0.31 cm), fruit weight (65.9 g to 238.7 g), leaf length (2 cm to 4.3 cm), leaf width (.97 cm to 2.3 cm), seed length (4.7 mm to 8.0 mm), seed width (2.97 mm to 4.77 mm), seed weight (23.76 g to 30.4 g), and No. of seed per fruit (102 to 614). The bio-chemical parameters also showed wide range of variation i.e. TSS (10.87 0Brix to18.09 0Brix), acidity (2.3% to 6.25%), total sugar (1.55% to 2.38%), reducing sugar (0.86% to 1.28%), non-reducing sugar (0.69% to 1.25%), ascorbic acid (12.63 mg/100g to 35.56 mg/100g). Therefore, on the basis of morphological quantitative and bio-chemical quality attributes, genotypes FS/WA-3, FS/WA-4, FS/WA-5, FS/WA-6, FS/WA-8, FS/WA-10 and FS/WA-25 were screened as promising genotypes. These promising genotypes can be recommended for commercial multiplication, growing at farmer’s field and conservation in the field gene bank for further evaluation and crop improvement.