Natural Product Radiance162

Green Page: Research PaperNatural Product Radiance, Vol. 8(2), 2009, pp.162-166

Introduction

Jatropha (Jatropha curcasLinn.) of Euphorbiaceae family is a smallsized perennial having xerophyticadaptations . It is now regarded as a plantof biodiesel value in addition to being apotential species for wastelandafforestation. In India it is found in almostall the states and is traditionally used formedicine, oil, pesticide and cosmetics.

To reduce the pressure on demand ofpetroleum product, an eco-friendly bio-diesel plant i.e. cultivation of jatropha onlarge scale assumes greater importance.Realizing the importance of oil fromJ. curcas, massive afforestation worksare geared up both by Government of Indiaand many state governments.

Almost in any part of the world,jatropha in the form of a plantation forseed production is not common1.

However, plantations of several hectareshave only been reported in west and centralAfrica. The success of crop and itsperformance in further generation isdecided by the methods of propagation.In perennials, vegetative propagation ishighly preferred for all desirablecharacters, viz. fruit characters, seedquality characters, oil content, etc.2. InJatropha, both seeds and stem cuttings areused for mass multiplication. The presentstudy is focused on mass multiplicationstrategy for J. curcas without involvingany costly misting system and rootinghormones for induction of roots and alsocompares the two propagules, viz. theseeds and cuttings for evaluation of fruitand seed quality characters.

Determination of suitable cutting size for vegetativepropagation and comparison of propagules to evaluate

the seed quality attributes in Jatropha curcas Linn.

M Kathiravan, A S Ponnuswamy and C Vanitha*

Department of Seed Science and TechnologyTamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore-641 003, Tamil Nadu, India

* Correspondent author, E-mail: cvani_seed@yahoo.co.in; Phone: 9846442771Received 26 December 2007; Accepted 12 January 2009

AbstractAn attempt was made to propagate the Jatropha, Jatropha curcas Linn. through

stem cutting without any rooting hormonal treatments. The cuttings were selected with three differentlengths, viz. 20 cm (L

1), 30 cm (L

2) and 40 cm (L

3) and four different stem thickness:

1.5-2.0 cm (T1), 2.0-2.5 cm (T

2), 2.5-3.0 cm (T

3) and 3.0-3.5 cm (T

4). The cuttings were planted

in the nursery and observed for survival percentage, number of leaves per plant, root volume, rootfresh and dry weight on 90 days after planting. The result revealed that the stem cutting with 40 cmlength (L

3) and 2.5 to 3.0 cm thickness (T

3) was found to be very suitable for quicker regeneration

with seedling quality characteristics compared to other types of cuttings. Hence, to find out thesuitable propagating material for commercial exploitation, the best performed stem cutting with 40cm length (L

3) and 2.5 to 3.0 cm thickness T

3) along with freshly harvested seeds were forwarded to

field trial. The plant biometric characteristics, fruit and seed quality attributes were observed in boththe treatments and compared to find out the best propagating techniques. The plants propagated byseeds recorded more plant height (1.65 m), number of branches (3.2). However, the flowering wasfour days earlier by cuttings than the plants propagated by seeds. The reproductive character of themonoecious inflorescence in terms of male to female flower ratio was higher in seed propagated crop(24:1) than cuttings (22:1). J. curcas propagated through seeds recorded better performancerelated to plant biometric and seed quality characteristics compared to cuttings, which induced earlyflowering and more female flowers than the seed crop.

Keywords: Jatropha, Jatropha curcas, Seed quality, Survival percentage, Vegetative

propagation.

IPC code; Int. cl.8 — A01G 1/00, A01H 5/04, A61K 36/00, A61K 36/47

Jatropha curcas

Vol 8(2) March-April 2009 163

Green Page: Research Paper

Materials and MethodsCollection and grading of cuttings

To determine the optimumlength and thickness of the cuttings forvegetative propagation, a large number ofcuttings were collected from 2.5 to 3.5years old mother plant from Institute ofForest Genetics and Tree Breeding(IFGTB), Coimbatore, India. After removalof the side branches and leaves, thecuttings were made into 20 cm (L

1),

30 cm (L2) and 40 cm (L

3) length and

1.5-2.0 cm T1), 2.0-2.5 cm (T

2),

2.5-3.0 cm (T3) and 3.0-3.5 cm (T

4) stem

thickness. Based on the length andthickness, the cuttings were graded in tosmall, medium and large (Fig. 1).

Rooting of cuttingsAbout 15 cm high nursery beds

of size 10 × 1 m were made in the field atDepartment of Seed Science andTechnology, Tamil Nadu AgriculturalUniversity, Coimbatore. Twenty fivecuttings in each category were planted inthe raised beds with four replications. Theobservations, viz. survival percentage,number of leaves per plant, root length,

root volume, root fresh and dry weightwere recorded on 90 days after planting.For assessing survival percentage, seedlingsthat survived after three months werecounted and expressed as per cent. Rootlength of the seedlings was measured fromcollar region to the root tip, expressed incentimeter. The number of fully openedleaves present in each cutting was countedand expressed as number of leaves/cutting.For assessing the root volume, theseedlings were scooped out, washed inrunning water, the root portion wasdetached at the nodal base of seedling andplaced in a measuring cylinder containingknown volume of water. By measuringincrease in the water column, root volumewas assessed and the mean value wasexpressed in cc/cutting. Fresh weight ofroot was calculated for different treatmentsand expressed in g/cutting. For analyzingdry weight of root, it was placed in paperbag and air dried for 24 h then kept in ahot air oven maintained at 85 ± 2°C for24 h, cooled in a desiccator, weighed andexpressed as g/cutting. The data weresubjected to an Analysis of Variance andtreatment differences tested (t test) for

significance (P=0.05) after Gomez andGomez3.

Results and DiscussionVegetative propagation

In the present study, the survivalpercentage differed significantly due tolength and thickness of the cuttings.Among the different lengths, L

3 recorded

the highest survival (65%), while, L1

recorded the lowest survival (56%).Among the thickness, T

3 recorded the

highest survival of 66 per cent followedby T

4 (62%). The cuttings of 40 cm length

with 2.5 to 3.0 cm thickness recorded themaximum survival per cent (68%) (Table 1).It is presumed that the medium sizedcuttings might have got sufficient foodmaterial and hormones for induction ofroot and shoot. According to Davis4

hormones have been shown to regulatedifferent aspects of plant growth anddevelopment including cell division, cellelongation and differentiation. ReinhardHenning1 observed that the cuttings about60-120cm long are highly amenable forvegetative propagation. It is also beenpresumed that the sprouting behaviour of

Fig. 1 : Different cutting sizes of Jatropha Fig. 2 : Sprouting of Jatropha cuttings

Natural Product Radiance164

stem cuttings varies with age, genotypesand physiological status of mother plant5,which may also be one of the reasons forgood performance of the medium sizedcuttings.

The vigour of the sproutedcuttings in all grades of cuttings was ratedin terms of number of leaves/cutting, rootlength (cm) and root volume (cc/cutting).More number of leaves were producedfrom L

3 (16.00) compared to L

1 (10.94)

and L3 recorded the maximum number of

leaves (15.14) than T1 (11.37). However,

the cutting length 40 cm and thickness2.5 to 3.0 cm

recorded the maximum

number of leaves/cutting (26.33)(Table 1). The cutting with morethickness (T

3) produced the lengthier

roots (22.35 cm). Regarding thethickness T

33 measured longer root length

(21.64 cm) than T1 (18.12 cm) (Table

2). The cuttings of 40 cm length (L3)

recorded the maximum root volume(3.97) compared to 20 cm (L

1) which

recorded the minimum value of 3.41(Table 1). The small sized cuttingsregistered very poor growth and wereinferior to the medium and longer sizedcuttings (Fig. 2). A reduction in root lengthwas observed with reduction in size ofcutting, due to inadequate supply ofnutrients and leaching of nutrients inshorter cuttings resulted in poorperformance in rooting6. Hegde7

expressed that this might be due to higheradventitious ability of juvenile charactersof larger cutting compared to smallercutting which are having tender tissues,with unsaturated latex and the highercontent of metabolites like tannin, lignin,etc. which adversely interfere withsprouting and root development. Theinitial levels of endogenous auxin and its

oxidation enzymes IAA-oxidase andperoxidase play a significant part in therooting process. IAA-oxidase activity isinvolved in triggering and initiating theroots/root primordial, whereas peroxidaseis involved in both root initiation andelongation8.

The biomass productivity of thedifferent grades of cuttings was estimatedin terms of fresh and dry weight ofroots. Maximum fresh and dry weight ofroot (47.529 and 17.821 g /cutting freshand dry weight, respectively) was recordedby L

3 compared to L

1 which recorded

the minimum of 31.822 and 12.746 g/cutting, respectively (Table 2). Thecuttings made with 40 cm length and2.5 to 3.0 cm thickness registered themaximum fresh and dry weight of50.336 and 19.273g/cutting. The poorperformance of the small grade cutting isalso attributed to the reason that thecuttings are still under maturity and maybe devoid of sufficient food material forinduction of roots and shoots. The underperformance of the larger sized cuttingsmay be attributed to the reason thatthese cuttings are more woody and mighthave converted most of the foodmaterials for the lignification whichresulted in over lignified stem and causedlower rooting and shooting percentage.In Jatropha species, shoots are formedmuch earlier than roots. Shoots thusformed earlier due to reservecarbohydrates, start producing auxinswhich moves downward, therebyaccumulating in the lower portion of thecuttings, when the concentration reachesa threshold value, endogenous auxins atthe extreme basal end start gettingmetabolized and signal the process of rootinitiation8.

Comparison of propagation by seedand vegetative cutting

To find out the suitablepropagating material for commercialexploitation, the best performed stemcuttings with 40 cm length (L

3) and 2.5

to 3.0 cm thickness along with freshlyharvested seeds were forwarded to fieldtrails. The plant height differedsignificantly due to propagating materials.The plants propagated through seedsproduced the plants with more height(1.65m) than the cuttings (1.52 m) (Fig.4). Between the propagating materials, theplants propagated through seeds recordedmore number of branches (3.2) thancuttings (2.4) (Fig. 3). Flowering was fourdays earlier in plants raised by cuttingsthan by seeds (Table 3). The variations inreproductive character of the monoeciousinflorescence in terms of male to femaleflower ratio between the seed propagated(24:1) and cuttings propagated crops wereincomparable (22:1). The plantspropagated through seeds recorded themaximum fresh and dry weight of fruit(11.54 and 2.79g, respectively)than plants propagated by cuttings(10.46 and 2.25 g) (Table 3). Themaximum 100 seed weight was recordedby the plants raised through seeds(104.04) than cuttings (101.66)(Table 3). The germination was more inseed plant (80%) whereas germination of75% was recorded in seeds fromcutting propagule. The plants propagatedthrough seeds recorded the maximumdry matter production of 3.042g and theminimum of 2.904g was recorded bycuttings (Fig.3). The oil content observeda non-significant difference betweenthe seeds of different propagationmethods.

Green Page: Research Paper

Vol 8(2) March-April 2009 165

Green Page: Research PaperTa

ble

1: E

ffect

of s

tem

cut

ting

leng

th a

nd th

ickn

ess

on s

urvi

val (

%),

num

ber

of le

aves

/cut

ting

and

root

vol

ume

in J

atro

pha

curc

as

Stem

cut

ting

size

Surv

ival

(%

)No

of

leav

es/c

uttin

g

Roo

t vol

ume

(cc/

cutti

ng)

Thic

knes

s (c

m)

Leng

th (

cm)

Le

ngth

(cm

)Le

ngth

(cm

)

L 1L 2

L 3M

ean

L 1L 2

L 3M

ean

L 1L 2

L 3M

ean

T 148

(43

.28)

53 (

47.8

5)63

(54

.75)

55 (

48.4

3)13

.66

16.6

618

.66

16.3

35.

205.

505.

665.

46T 2

53 (

47.8

8)61

(52

.74)

65 (

55.7

7)60

(50

.79)

15.6

618

.00

21.3

318

.33

5.50

5.70

5.86

5.69

T 363

(54

.75)

66 (

56.8

4)68

(60

.11)

66 (

56.8

4)18

.00

19.6

626

.33

21.3

35.

705.

836.

105.

88T 4

60 (

50.7

9)63

(54

.75)

65 (

55.7

7)62

(53

.79)

16.6

619

.00

23.0

019

.56

5.36

5.73

5.93

5.68

Mea

n56

(49

.61)

61 (

52.7

4)65

(55

.77)

16.0

018

.33

22.3

35.

445.

695.

89L

TLT

LT

LTL

TLT

SEd

1.09

01.

259

2.18

00.

185

0.21

30.

369

0.02

20.

025

0.04

3CD

(P=

0.05

)2.

261

2.61

14.

522

0.36

80.

425

0.73

60.

043

0.05

00.

086

L 1- 20

cm, L

2 - 30

cm

, L3 -

40 c

m; T

1 - 1.

5-2.

0 cm

, T2 - 2.

0-2.

5 cm

, T3 -

2.5-

3.0

cm, T

4 - 3

.0-3

.5 c

mSE

d –

Stan

dard

Err

or d

evia

tion;

CD

– C

ritic

al D

iffer

ence

Tabl

e 2:

Effe

ct o

f ste

m c

uttin

g le

ngth

and

thic

knes

s on

roo

t len

gth

(cm

),ro

ot fr

esh

and

dry

wei

ght (

g/cu

tting

) in

Jat

roph

a cu

rcas

Stem

cut

ting

size

Root

leng

th (

cm)

Root

fre

sh w

eigh

t (g

/cut

ting)

Ro

ot d

ry w

eigh

t (g

/cut

ting)

Thic

knes

s (c

m)

Leng

th (

cm)

L

engt

h (c

m)

Le

ngth

(cm

)

L 1L 2

L 3M

ean

L 1L 2

L 3M

ean

L 1L 2

L 3M

ean

T 121

.83

24.7

026

.33

24.2

929

.890

36.0

7643

.866

36.6

1110

.607

14.3

4316

.373

13.7

74

T 223

.73

25.7

627

.43

25.6

430

.706

38.4

5346

.676

38.6

1212

.793

15.4

5617

.526

15.2

59

T 326

.40

28.9

032

.86

29.3

933

.150

41.1

2050

.336

41.5

3614

.123

16.2

0619

.273

16.5

34

T 424

.63

28.2

031

.80

28.2

133

.540

39.7

7049

.236

40.8

4813

.460

15.3

7618

.110

15.6

49

Mea

n24

.15

26.8

929

.61

31.8

2238

.855

47.5

2912

.746

15.3

4617

.821

LT

LTL

TLT

LT

LT

SEd

0.11

60.

134

0.23

20.

217

0.25

00.

434

0.11

00.

127

0.22

0

CD (

P=0.

05)

0.23

10.

267

0.46

30.

433

0.50

00.

866

0.21

90.

253

0.43

9

L 1-20

cm, L

2-30

cm, L

3-40

cm; T

1-1.5

-2.0

cm

, T2-2

.0-2

.5 c

m, T

3 - 2.

5-3.

0 cm

, T4 - 3

.0-3

.5 c

mSE

d –

Stan

dard

Err

or d

evia

tion;

CD

– C

ritic

al D

iffer

ence

Natural Product Radiance166

Table 3: Comparison of propagation methods on growth and seed characteristics in Jatropha curcas

Treatments Days to first Male/female flower Fresh weight Dry weight of 100 seed Germination Oil content(%)flowering ratio (Female flower of fruit (g) fruit (g) weight (g) (%)

percentage)

Seeds 118 24:1 (4.2) 11.54 2.79 104.04 80(63.78) 32.72

Cuttings 114 22:1 (4.5) 10.46 2.25 101.66 75(62.56) 32.35

Mean 116 4.35 11.00 2.52 102.85 78(63.71) 32.53

S Ed 1.4661 0.031 0.205 0.066 0.8482 1.52 NS

CD (P=0.05) 3.1674 0.067 0.443 0.142 1.8325 3.13

NS – Non-significant; SEd – Standard Error deviation; CD – Critical Difference

ConclusionThe present study revealed that

the macro propagation of J. curcas stemcuttings with 40 cm length and 2.5 to 3.0cm thickness is successful in generatinghigher survival with biomassproductivity. Plants propagated throughseeds recorded better performance relatedto plant biometric and seed qualitycharacteristics compared to cuttings.However, the oil content was not differedsignificantly between the two propagules.

2. Hartmann HT and Kester DE, Plantpropagation: Principles and practices, 4th Edn,Prentice-Hall Inc. Engle wood cliffs, 1983.

3. Gomez KA and Gomez AA, StatisticalProcedures for Agricultural Research, JohnWilley and Sons, New York, 1984.

4. Davis PJ, Plant hormones and their role in

plant growth and development, Kluwer,

Dordrecht, 1996.

5. Pal M, Vegetative propagation of teak byrooting stem cuttings, Proc Sec for Conf,1980, 2, 145-148.

6. Good GL and Tukey HB, Leaching ofmetabolites from cuttings propagated underintermittent mist, Proc Am Soc Hort Sci,1966, 89, 725-733.

7. Hegde SS, Propagation studies in someornamental shrubs by cuttings, M.Sc. (Ag.)Thesis submitted to University of AgriculturalScience, Banglore, 1988.

8. Kochhar S, Kochhar VK, Singh SP, Katiyar RSand Pushpangadan P, Differential rooting andsprouting behaviour of two Jatropha speciesand associated physiological and biochemicalchanges, Curr Sci, 2005, 89(6),936-939.

Green Page: Research Paper

Fig. 3 : Effect of cuttings length and thickness on plant height (m)and number of branches in Jatropha

4

3

2

1

0

4

3

2

1

0Plant height (m) Number of

branches/plantDry matter production

(g seedlings-10)

Seeds Cuttings

In the present situation, availability ofquality seeds for large scale planting/afforestation is scanty. Hence, this studyimplies that the stem cuttings help todevelop uniform plant stock for thesuccessful afforestation of larger area inone planting season.

References1. Reinhard Henning, The jatropha booklet. A

guide to the jatropha system and itsdissemination in Zambia, GTZ-ASSP-ProjectZambia, 13, Mazabuka, 2003.