Biomass & Bioenergy, Vol.58, 210-218, 2013
Screening of Jatropha curcas germplasm for oil content and fatty acid composition
Jatropha curcas L. (Euphorbiaceae) oil has emerged as a potential candidate for the production of biodiesel across the world as well as in India. The present study was conducted on seeds sample of;. curcas collected from 14 different geographical location of India to assess the variability in its biochemical parameters (oil content and fatty acids) and K-SC ratio (ratio of dry mass of seed kernel to seed coat). Apart from descriptive statistical parameters, Pearson correlation analysis was done to study the association between various biochemical parameters and K-SC ratio. Effect of geographical parameters such as altitude and soil type was also studied. The oil content ranged from 11.68% to 42.08% and found affected by soil type. A significant (p < 0.01) positive correlation was observed between oil content and linoleic acid, total unsaturation and K-SC ratio. The data was analyzed for establishing a linear regression relation with the SPSS software. Statistical significant results (p = 0) were obtained with the R-2 value calculated as 0.179 for seed oil versus linoleic acid and 0.502 for seed oil versus K-SC ratio. The paired 't' test at 95% confidence interval showed no significant difference in the mean value calculated with regression equation and oil content calculated with soxtherm extraction. Hence, the established relation could be very well used for the preliminary screening of the J. curcas seeds sample. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.