CHARACTERIZATION AND EVALUATION OF MANDUKAPARNI (CentellaasiaticaL.) GERMPLASM)
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Date
2017-05
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University of Horticultural Sciences, Bagalkot. (College of Horticulture, Bengaluru)
Abstract
Mandukaparni (Centellaasiatica(L.) Urban) is a perennial, prostrate, stoloniferous herb grown commonly in damp areas in different tropical countries and is used both in traditional and modern medicine. The main active principles are Asiaticoside, Madecassoside, Asiatic acid and Madecassic acid. The study was undertaken to assess the genetic diversity by morphological, biochemical and molecular methods within the 15 germplasm accessions maintained at ICAR-Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, Bengaluru. Morphological characterization of the accessions showed differences among the qualitative traits in terms of leaf shape, leaf margin, leaf petiole colour and flower colour. For quantitative characters, higher estimates of phenotypic coefficient of variation, genotypic coefficient of variation, heritability and genetic advance was observed for shoot length, leaf length, leaf width, rosette diameter, petiole length, fresh leaf weight and dry leaf weight. The genetic divergence studies using Mahalanobis D2 analysis divided the accessions into five clusters based on morphological characters. Biochemical analysis for terpenoids showed wide variation among the accessions with the highest asiaticoside content in IIHR CA-13 followed by IIHR CA-14. The madecassoside content was found highest in IIHR CA-14 followed by IIHR CA-7, IIHR CA-1 and IIHR CA-13. The molecular characterization was done using 20 SSR markers out of which 18 primers showed 100 per cent polymorphism. PIC values of primers ranged from 0.20 to 0.34 with a mean of 0.26. Thus, this study showed that there is a wide variation among the genotypes in terms of morphological, biochemical and molecular characters and offers scope for future crop improvement programmes.