Morphological and productive traits of Jatropha macrocarpa Griseb. Wild plants.

Abstract

Current needs in energy security, rural development, and sustainable use of resources call for the generation of alternative ways of production useful for the achievement of such aims. A possible option is the development of technologies for the utilization of oilseed species which are not currently used. One of these species is Jatropha macrocarpa, which inhabits areas where traditional species cannot be cultivated without a substantial input of resources.The objective of this work is to describe its morphological and production characteristics in wild plants. The evaluated plants show a maximum of 11cm in diameter, 2.7m of height, and 70 apices; the minimum size of a plant bearing fruit is 3.5cm in diameter and height of 0.7m; the maximum amount of fruits found is 100 in 72 clusters with a maximum of 7 fruits per cluster. The morphological and production characteristics are directly related to the increase of the base diameter minus the amount of fruits per cluster and fruit per stem that does not present significant differences (p>0.01).The highest production was that of plants without interspecific competition (15.5 fruits). Production diminished when there was competition against shrubs (13.0 fruits) and even more when they grew in the shade (11.3 fruits). Intraspecific competition has shown increases in production variables (12.5 to 10.2 fruits per plant). The information obtained will allow estimating the potential of the species in cultivation and high dispersion of the data allows assuming a genetic variability usable in selection programs.