Studies on flowering behavior and seed yield of BC4F1 hybrid progenies in Jatropha

Field investigation was carried out by the Centre of Excellence in Biofuels, TNAU, Coimbatore during kharif 2009, to study the number of male and female flowers per cluster and seed yield per plant in BC4F1 progenies of Jatropha. The eighteen BC4F1 progenies used in this study were developed from interspecific hybridization of Jatropha curcas x J. integerrima followed by four repeated backcrossing with Jatropha curcas (TNMC-7). Based on the per se performance, three introgressed progenies viz., 3-20-9-3, 3-20-9-2 and 3-95-7-5-4 were found to be significant for the traits viz., number of female flowers per cluster and seed yield per plant.