Morphological Characterization of Selected Jackfruits of West Garo Hills of NE India

Abstract

A survey was conducted to study the fruit characters of jackfruits grown in West Garo Hills of Meghalaya during 2016 to 2018. More than 50 jackfruit trees bearing 15 to 40 years of age were initially evaluated, out of which 10 accessions exhibiting distinct morphological characters were selected for detailed characterization. Significant variations were observed in terms of qualitative and quantitative parameters of fruit under the study. Jackfruit accession viz. WGHJ-1 exhibited desirable characters such as big sized flakes, big and heavy seeds, high fruit:rind ratio, flake:fruit ratio, juicy pulp etc. hence it is considered ideal for making processed products like jam, jelly, halwa, candy, juice etc. as well as for starch extraction from seeds. Considering the small sized fruit with flat spines, thin rind, high flake: fruit ratio, highest number of thick and sweet flakes, accession WGHJ-5 is recommended for table purpose. The sweet, thick, heavy and non-juicy flake makes WGHJ-8 a probable good type for chips making and table purpose. This paper presents 41 characteristic features related to the whole fruit, flakes and seeds of 10 jackfruit accessions selected from the West Garo Hills of Meghalaya.