Fruit Morphology Description of Seven Jackfruit Clones from Farmers Collection

Abstract

Jackfruit scientifically known as Artocarpus heterophyllus and locally known as ‘nangka’ is a potential fruit for commercial production for local and export market. The fruit parts that can be consumed are only the flakes. The prospects of jackfruit in Malaysia are bright. It can be consumed either fresh or as minimally processed jackfruit. In response to clonal issue of commercial jackfruit, the performance of six jackfruit clones viz., Mastura, Mantin, Hong, Cj3, Cj6 and YL were evaluated from farmers’ field with Tekam Yellow used as a check clone. The evaluation was done on the collected fruit that comes from the main states that produce this commodity such as Johor, Negeri Sembilan, Selangor and Pahang. Ten fruits each from seven clones were characterised for fruit quality characters namely fruit weight, fruit length, fruit width, fruit circumference, fruit rind thickness, number of flakes per fruit, number of kesep per fruit, flake thickness, 10 flakes weight, 10 flakes weight with seed, 10 seeds weight, fruit rind weight, rachis weight, flake TSS (% Brix), weight of one flake per fruit, total weight of flakes per fruit and recovery rate (%). Highly significant clonal differences in fruit characteristics such as fruit weight, fruit length, number of flakes per fruit, number of kesep per fruit, flake thickness, 10 flakes weight, 10 flakes weight with seed, fruit rind weight, rachis weight, flake TSS (% Brix), weight of one flake per fruit and total weight of flakes per fruit were obtained. Result also showed that there is no significant difference for the character of 10 seed weight. However, significant clonal differences were observed in fruit width, fruit circumference, fruit rind thickness and recovery rate. With desirable fruit quality traits, the mean of fruit weight was 16.9 kg ranging from 6.8 to 34.0 kg. The fruit length was 48.5 cm ranging from 20.5 to 73.0 cm and the flake TSS was 20.4 °Bx ranging from 11.0 to 38.8 °Bx. Mostly there is no wide variation of the fruit quality traits in clones as jackfruit is self-pollinated crops and all of them are monocrop plants. Fruit quality can be used as a criterion in the selection of superior jackfruit clones. Therefore, this important information would be useful to select the best quality jackfruit to be recommended to the farmers or growers as high-quality clones.