Studies on morphological characteristics and categorization of nerium accessions based on utility

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the performance of nerium accessions and their categorization based on colour and uses. Field experiment was conducted at the “Botanical garden, Department of Floriculture and Landscaping, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore”. Thirteen nerium accessions were collected and coded named as ACC-1 to ACC-13. Significant variations in vegetative and flowering related traits were observed among the accessions. Out of the thirteen accessions, ACC-6 recorded the maximum number of primary branches (6.17), leaf area (29.67cm2), number of flowers per plant (16) and yield per plant per year (245.89 g), whereas, plant height (176.11cm) and shelf life (3.73 days) was maximum in ACC-10. From among the thirteen accessions, the desired one could be identified easily for aspecific purpose, since Nerium is vegetatively propagated and selected for defined traits vegetati-ve, flowering and flower qualities (flower form, colour).

Keywords

• nerium
• morphological traits
• categorization and usage