Assessing morphological and isozyme variation of jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam.) in Bangladesh

A farmers' participatory survey was carried out in five different agroecosystems of Bangladesh to obtain information on the genetic diversity, consumers preferences for fruit quality and to assess the data to select potentailly superior genotypes of jackfruit. A wide variation in morpho-agronomic characters was identified from farnmers' information and also from laboratory analyses. Multivariate analtysis of the data produced 4 discrete gropups, representted by trees from different agroecological zones and soil types. Characteristics such as weight, length, girth of fruits, number of bulbs per fruit; percentage of pulp; percentage of rachis (core); and percentage of rind (peel) were found to be poorly correlated with environmental factors indicateng that these characters may be genetically controlled. Other characters, such as seed weight, bulb weight, and brix (%) were found to be affected by enviornmental and genetic factors. Izsozyme analysis of 50 accessions confirmed results obtained from field studies of morpho-agronomic characters. Ten potentially superior types were selected on the basis of yield, fruiting seasosn, flesh colour. Texture, sweetness and farmers'' preference for recommendation to producers