Morphological attributes, biochemical parameters, phytochemical constituents and antioxidant activities of endangered Citrus macroptera Mont (Hatkora.) from North-East India

Citrus macroptera Mont commonly known as Melanesian papeda or hatkora is grown in wild or semi-wild state in north eastern part of India The main objective of this present study was to investigate the morphological characters, biochemical parameters, phytochemical constituents and antioxidant activities within 30 hatkora accessions from Mizoram, north-east India. The results indicated wide range of variability in terms of morphological characters, biochemical parameters, phytochemical constituents and antioxidant activities of hatkora. Significant differences exhibited among the studied accessions in polymorphic qualitative features such as leaf lamina shape, leaf lamina margin, leaf apex shape, petiole wing shape, fruit shape, fruit apex shape, fruit base shape, seed shape, and colour. Fruit quantitative characters, such as fruit weight, fruit volume, fruit length, fruit diameter, rind thickness, juice volume, juice percentage, and number of seeds per fruit and biochemical parameters as well phytochemical constituents and antioxidant activities of the fruits, such as TSS, juice pH, ascorbic acid, titratable acidity, total, reducing and non-reducing sugars, total phenolics, total flavonoids, DPPH, and ABTS activities were also varied significantly among the studied accessions. The wide range of variation in all these parameters of hatkora fruits indicated the great scope for selection of the elite types for future genetic improvement programme based on these characters.