Breeding of Fruit and Plantation Crops

Kokam

Kokam: Garcinia indica
Family: Clausiaceae (syn : Guttiferea)

• Kokam is dioecious, but seems to be highly variable in sex forms.


Origin of kokum trees
Native to evergreen forests of western mountain range.

Sex types

• The trees could be designated into the following types on the basis of preponderance of particular type of flowers and the bearing tendency of individual tree.
Tree type -1 – Staminate or male tree:

• The flowers have mostly long pedicels, mass of stamens crowded on receptacle and sometimes rudimentary pistil with pointed apex. They are incapable of producing any fruit and serve as pollinators only.
Tree type- II- Hermaphrodite or bisexual:

• Young fruits produced by the tree are generally irregular in shape containing 0 to 6 underdeveloped seeds. Yield per tree may vary from 1 to 3 kg of fruits.
Tree type III- Pistillate or female:

• Flower is identified by short pedicel, well developed pistil and two or four tufts of staminodes below. Fruits are round to globose, dark red when ripe and contain 1 to 7 well developed seeds. Adult tree bears heavy crop. In a population of 62 trees observed 37 per cent turned out to be male, 8 per cent bisexual and 55 per cent female.

Constraints and suggestions for Kokum Development in India.

1. Scattered production: No organized production of kokum at present. Most homesteads have a few trees from which fruits are collected from a wider area and it adds to the cost of production.
2. Federations/ Cooperative groups, Processing and marketing federations of collectors and growers should be formed. Collective farming system should be adopted.
3. Short harvesting period: Fruit harvest in kokum is only for about six weeks in a year, which is a short period for processing. During the first half of the summer the demand of kokum has to be met out of the production of the previous year and then supplying the production of current year for the second half.
4. Spoilage of the produce: Kokum starts fruiting from March and it extends until the first week of June. If it rains during the fruiting season the fruits will be spoiled. Premonsoon showers will spoil part of kokum produce.
5. Regional and seasonal demand: Though kokum drink is superior to many synthetic soft drinks in the market, its use is not known through out India. It is suggested to popularize kokum drink as a health drink than a soft drink
Varieties

• At KKV, Dapoli, fourteen kokum types with early maturity, bigger sized fruits and high yield have been identified.
Konkan Amrit

• Released from KKV Dapoli (Dr. B.S. Konkan Krishi Vidyapeeth.). Konkan Amrit variety fruits are bigger in size weighing about 30 g.
Yellow kokum

• A unique variety of kokum in Uttara Kannada dist. It is locally called as bili murugalu though the colour is yellow. It is believed to posses more medicinal properties. Skin will turn yellow at the time of ripening.Kokum is one of the important non timber forest produces (NTFPs) collected from the western ghats of Karnataka.Variety Konkan Amritha was developed by clonal selection. This variety is considerably early having short harvesting period (78days) with a few pluckings. The yield is high (138.28kg) with medium sized fruits (34.45g) having rind of 17.55g. Filled seeds were 3.55 per fruit. This variety is a pure female.