Underutilised Traditional Loose Flower Crops of Goa with Good Commercial Potential

Abstract

Popularity of traditional flowers like Crossandra and Jasmines has come down in Goa due to the advent of modern cut flowers advent and impact of Western culture. Hence a study was conducted to collect and conserve traditional loose flower crops of Goa at ICAR-CCARI. Extensive and systematic surveys were conducted in all talukas of Goa for collection of different Jasminum and Crossandra species. Materials used for the study consisted of crossandra accessions viz.,C-1(Big dark orange),C-2(Ratan-aboli),C-3(light-orange),C-4(bright-yellow) and C-5(dark-orange) and fourteen Jasminum accessions belonging to J.sambac, J.auriculatum, J.grandiflorum and J.multiflorum. Significant variation was noticed among the accessions of these loose flower crops for various morphological and floral-quality traits. Plant height,leaf length and width,no.of branches/plant,length and diameter of flower,flower stalk length, no.of flowers/month and weight of individual flower in crossandra varied from 25.87cm to 67.49cm, 9.43cm to 11.10cm, 3.03cm to 4.19cm, and 3.00 to 6.24,3.13cm to 4.67cm, 2.14cm to 4.29cm, 1.91cm to 2.43cm, 90.23 to 153 and 0.02g to 0.11g respectively. Plant height,bud and flower fresh weight,bud diameter and length,bud stalk length,corolla tube length,flower diameter,no.of petals/flower,length and width of petals and flower stalk length in jasmine accessions ranged from 66cm(J-7) to 143cm(J-5),0.052g(J-5) to 0.563g(J-1),0.05g(J-5) to 1.37g(J-10),1.14cm(J-8) to 0.264cm(J-5),2.54cm(J-6) to 0.85cm(J-5) and 2.30cm(J-14) to 1.08cm(J-8), 2.70cm (J-14) to 0.864cm(J-10), 6.68cm(J-6) to 1.96cm(J-5), 43( J-10) to 5.0(J-1), 0.96(J-5) to 3.50(J-6),0.32cm(J-5) to 1.74cm(J-4) and 2.80cm(J-14) to 1.10cm(J-10) respectively. Hence accessions of these underutilised flower crops exhibited an implausible diversity with potential floricultural traits.