MORPHOLOGICAL AND QUANTITATIVE CHARACTERIZATION OF WOOD APPLE (FERONIA LIMONIA L.) GENOTYPES UNDER AWADH REGION OF UTTAR PRADESH, INDIA

Wood apple (Feronia limonia L.) is an important underutilized fruit of the world having great medicinal and religious significance.Awadh of Uttar Pradesh is very rich in biodiversity for wood apple but still less harnessed.Fruit sample with shoot were collected from twenty-nine genotypes of wood apple in diverse areas of Awadh region of Uttar Pradesh and analysed for various physiological attributes and results of study shows a wide range of variability in morphological and quantitative parameters.Among the parameters fruit shape of different genotypes show a variation viz, flattened, round and oval shapes are found.The experiment was laid out in Completely Randomized block Design (CRD) with three replications.Observations revealed rich genetic variations with respect to individual fruit length (5.33-9.43cm), fruit width (5.57-9.46cm), fruit weight (113.26-258.86 g), spine length (1.34-3.50cm), shell thickness (0.16-0.43 mm), seed length (4.54-8.36mm), seed width (1.95-4.02mm), seed thickness (1.36-1.67 mm), seed weight per fruit (25.25-31.05g), number of seeds per fruit (160.0-456.0),among different genotypes.Among these genotypes, Genotypes -G15, G14, G13, G17, G18 and G20 were screened as promising genotypes.