MORPHO-AGRONOMIC CHARACTERIZATION AND GENETIC VARIABILITY ASSESSMENT IN MANGO-GINGER (CURCUMA AMADA; ZINGIBERACEAE)

Shakeel A. Jatoi; Afsheen Zehra; Kazuo N. Watanabe

Shakeel A. Jatoi Plant Genetic Resources Institute, National Agriculture Research, Islamabad
Afsheen Zehra Gene Research Centre, School of Environmental Sciences, Tsukuba, Japan
Kazuo N. Watanabe Department of Botany, Federal University, Science and Technology, Karachi

Keywords: Curcuma amada, mango-ginger, characterization, morphology, Myanmar

Abstract

The present study was undertaken at University of Tsukuba, Japan to investigate the genetic variability pattern in mango-ginger acquired from Myanmar, which is home to many species of the Zingiberaceous taxa. Mango-ginger (Curuma amada) is a valuable spice and aromatic crop having medicinal significance. A high to moderate variance for plant height, rhizome weight, finger rhizome thickness, sheath length, and leaf length was observed in the germplasm assayed during the two years. Principal component analysis yielded a varying distribution pattern of the genotypes and explained 94.09% and 93.55% of the total variation by the first four PCs during the year 2005 and 2006, respectively. During 2005 gene bank accessions appeared as a distinct and divergent group on the plot whereas accessions belonging to rest of collection sources remained undistinguished from each other.