Breeding of Vegetable, Spice and Tuber Crops

Nutmeg

Nutmeg: Myristica fragrans
Family: Myristicaceae

• The genus Myristica consists of about 120 species of which five have been described from India. They are M. fragrans, M. malabarica, M. magnifica, M.beddomei and M. contorta. The main difficulties are the long juvenile phase, the difficulty inropagating vegetatively, the dioecy and the single ovule in female flower.
• Wide variation was reported in growth rate, productivity, size and shape of the leaf, flower size and shape and size of the fruit and nut. Selection will be effective in improving fruit number in nutmeg and selecting nutmeg trees with optimum fruit number and moderately good seed weight.