Find in Library

Plant flowering and breeding characteristics are important for us to understand the reproduction of plant populations. In thispaper, we studied the mode of reproduction of Jatropha curcas. in GKVK, UAS, Bengaluru. The plant produces flowers indichasial inflorescences. Normally, the flowers are unisexual, and male and female flowers are produced in the sameinflorescence. Only a few male flowers are produced in an inflorescence, and fruits are produced only through pollinationbetween different flowers from the same or different plants. Pollination experiment clearly revealed the predominance ofcross pollination in Jatropha curcas with the apomixis up to 28.5 per cent. The mean female to male flower ratio in theJatropha was around 14.4 to 105.73. By the treatments of emasculation, bagging and artificial pollination, which showed thatJatropha curcas could facilitate sexual system geitonogamy up to 75.6% fruit set indicates self-compatibility and xenogamyup to 82.33 per cent fruit set. When the inflorescences were unbagged, unemasculated and with free pollination treatments,or unbagged, emasculated and with free pollination treatments, there were many fruits produced. It showed that out crossingup to 74.97 per cent fruit set, and demanding for pollinators. Normally, the male flowers open first and maximum number ofmale flowers open from fourth to ninth day. However, a large number of female flowers open from the fourth to the seventhday, with some female flowers opening first in a few raceme. This shows a tendency to promote xenogamy and minimizegeitonogamy.