Identification of elite genotypes of turmeric through agroclimatic zone based evaluation of important drug yielding traits

Turmeric (Curcuma longa L.) is an economically important plant for production of curcumin, oleoresin, essential oil which are used in pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries. The drug yielding qualitative traits of turmeric from different agroclimatic regions were studied to find out the promising elite genotypes in terms of high curcumin, oleoresin and essential oil content. Among the selected genotypes, cv. Surama of Eastern ghat highland yielded high curcumin content (8.8%), cv. Lakadong of Eastern ghat highland and acc. Malkangiri of South eastern ghat yielded high oleoresin content (15%). The leaf and rhizome of acc. Malkangiri of South eastern ghat yielded highest essential oil content (1.9%) and (2%) respectively. The essential oil of leaves and rhizomes of promising genotypes were qualitatively evaluated by GC-MS analysis. Alpha-phellandrene and Ar-tumerone were identified as major compound in leaf and rhizome oil respectively. Alpha-phellandrene was found to be highest (63.91%) in cv. Lakadong of Eastern ghat highland and Ar-tumerone was highest (63.69%) in acc. Malkangiri of South eastern ghat. These promising elite genotypes of turmeric from different agroclimatic regions were found to be better in terms of desired drug yielding qualitative traits viz. (curcumin >5%, oleoresin >9%, leaf oil >0.5% and rhizome oil >0.8%). (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.