Morphological diversity of breadfruit [Artocarpus altilis (Parkinson) Fosberg] in the Caribbean

Abstract

Despite being introduced to the Caribbean over 227 years ago to address issues of food insecurity, breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis) has remained underutilized, which has been linked to the limited knowledge of the crop diversity and characterization in the region. An increased understanding of breadfruit diversity can support commercialization and better utilization by improving propagators' and growers' selection of accessions or types that will meet consumers and processors demand. This study focuses on the morphological characterization of 27 breadfruit accessions, which either have existed in the Caribbean since the 18th century or were introduced in the 1990s. All accessions were established in a field collection at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago. Results of the current study showed that breadfruit accessions were highly variable and that for several morphological characteristics, including fruit characters that are of economic importance, the recently introduced accessions have expanded the range for selection. Fruit characters such as skin texture, skin colour, shape and pulp colour were also the most useful for distinguishing among accessions. Descriptors related to leaf lobing were also important for distinguishing a few accessions. The results confirmed the usefulness of morphological traits for breadfruit germplasm characterization and also for combining with other methods of diversity analysis.