Regional Agricultural Research Institute, Bahawalpur, Pakistan

Department of Life Sciences, Islamia University Bahawalpur, Pakistan.

Department of Life Sciences, Islamia University Bahawalpur, Pakistan.

Department of Life Sciences, Islamia University Bahawalpur, Pakistan.
Eruca sativa ,Morphological parameters ,Accessions ,

Eruca sativa is a medicinally and economically very important plant. It is also sometimes referred to as rocket, true rocket, rocket salad, arugula, roquette or white pepper. The young plants are used as a salad, vegetable and as green fodder. Tender leaves are reported to have stomachic, diuretic and anti-scorbutic activity. The present experiment was designed to explore the germplasm variability among 55 accessions of E. sativa obtained from (PARC) Pakistan Agriculture Research Council, Islamabad. Considerable variations were observed in various agro-morphological traits i.e., height of plant, number of branches per plant, length of main inflorescence, number of leaves per plant, number of nodes of main stem, number of pods, width of 5th internode. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) performed on various parameters recorded 95.7% of variance, out of which 39.1% by first component, 23.0% by second component, 11.1% by third component, 10.0% by fourth component, 6.3% by fifth component, 5.4% by sixth component and 4.7% by seventh component was recorded. Positive correlation among various morphological variables indicates that selective accessions proved highly desirable enhancing biomass production. These preliminary screened accessions of Eruca sativa should further be evaluated under multiple environmental stresses to select the best suited accessions of this medicinal plant.

4 , 7 , 2014