Divergência fenotípica entre acessos de pinhão manso (Jatropha curcas l.) utilizando caracteres morfoagronômicos

Abstract

Jatropha curcas L., known as physic nut, is a species seen as promising for the production of biodiesel in Brazil, becoming an alternative to fossil fuels. This species has been studied, but there is a need for research that reveals their true potential for productive. As well, there are still no commercial cultivars. Given the need for alternative energy generation alternative Jatropha is gaining visibility among researchers and companies from around the world for its production of good quality oil. In the experimental field of the Institute of Agronomy of UFRRJ is installed a collection consisting of accesses from different Brazilian regions, where each access is an individual, totaling 286 hits. Evaluations were carried out in the three first years of production of fruits and seeds, totaling three times (May to July 2010, December 2010 to May 2011 and December 2011 to May 2012). The objective of the research is to identify the variability and phenotypic divergence among accessions of Jatropha curcas present in the collection, through assessments of morphological characteristics in order to identify potential hits to be used in breeding programs of this species. This study evaluated the variability among accessions through features directly associated with the production of seeds, thus indicating possible genetic materials for use in breeding programs. Some accessions were identified as productive during the three years of assessment, and the use of methods of selection index may be useful for the identification of hits that contain the desirable agronomic characteristics. Was observed variability between populations and accessions evaluated in this study, and that the production traits, such as number of fruits and number of seeds were the most variable among the characters used for the evaluation of diversity among accessions of the collection. In the evaluation of the oil was observed that accessions have good quality oil extracted from its seeds, since they have high content of monounsaturated fatty acids, which measures the oil quality for biodiesel production.