Indian Journal of Natural Products and Resources Vol. 3(2), June 2012, pp. 246-255 Variability in the accessions from Aravali range assessed for domestication of the Cleomaceae biodiesel plant Cleome viscosa Linn. Rashmi Kumari 1,2 , Anshika Tyagi 2 , Vishakha Sharma 2 , Vinod Kumar Jain 1 and Sushil Kumar 2 * 1 Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi-110 067 India 2 National Institute of Plant Genome Research (NIPGR), New Delhi-110 067, Aruna Asaf Ali Marg, Post Box 10531, New Delhi-110067, India Received 13 November 2011; Accepted 12 March 2012 In an earlier study at our laboratory showed that the biodiesel derived from the seed oil of the annual herbaceous medicinal weed plant Cleome viscosa Linn. possesses properties similar to the commercial biodiesel produced from Jatropha seed oil. Here, the possibilities of domestication of C. viscosa were examined. With this objective, 15 accessions from Aravali range in North-West India and two from North-East India were evaluated for phenotypic and genetic variability. The accessions were cultivated in four seasons from May to November 2009 at New Delhi by growing them in randomized block design replicated four times. The accessions were studied for 6 qualitative and 13 agronomic characters and significant genetic variability in all the agronomic traits was observed. On the basis of morphological features, the accessions fell into two groups: a small leaved group and a large leaved group. While the small leaved group comprised of accessions from Rajasthan, the large leaved group included accessions from different locations in North-west and North- East India. One of the small leaved accessions called CVR14 was identified as a putative high yielding accession. The July- October (or monsoon-autumn) season of about 13-15 weeks was observed to be the most suitable period for obtaining rainfed crop of C. viscosa CVR14. The DNA fingerprinting based analysis of hierarchical relationships between accessions demonstrated that large leaved and small leaved accessions were inter-related. The results indicated that C. viscosa accessions from diverse locations perhaps comprised a single complex. Keywords: Biodiesel, Non-edible oil-seed, Rainfed crop, Cleome viscosa, Short-duration plant IPC code; Int. cl. (2011.01)—A61K 36/00 Introduction Cleome viscosa Linn., belonging to family Cleomaceae is a annual weed, widely distributed throughout the tropical regions of the world 1-5 . In India it is a weed plant of semi-temperate, subtropical and tropical regions 2-6 . Dense population of C. viscosa are found in several parts of Aravali range in North West India encompassing parts of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi 2,7 . It is a traditional medicine-cum- vegetable plant, locally called Hulhul, Hurhur, Adityabhakta, Arkakanta, Hurhuria, Talvani, Ariavila, Nayikkadugu, Chilakamukkuvithulu, Bagro, Jakhiya and Kukhavominta 1,2,8,9 . The plant parts are rubefacient, vesicant and sudorific, roots are used as cardiac stimulant and in diabetes. Seeds are used for deworming and extracts of leaves, flowers and stems have antimicrobial activity 6,9-13 . Defatted seeds are used for the industrial extraction of coumarinolignoids, a valuable chemical entity needed by pharmaceutical industries for liver diseases and immunomodulation 14,15 . Defatted seeds are also used as fodder 16 and for production of biogas 17,18 . The seeds of the plant are reported to be rich in oil (23-36.6%). Our previous study demonstrated production of biodiesel from C. viscosa oil, which has many of the properties similar to the Jatropha biodiesel 19 . Since it has potential as a resource for biodiesel, a question has arisen whether it can be domesticated for possible cultivation. In the present study accessions of C. viscosa were collected from different parts of Aravali range and evaluated for their agronomic characteristics. Here we report the results of this study and demonstrate that the collected accessions possess considerable genetic variability and the species can be developed into a short duration crop suitable for cultivation in the summer-monsoon- autumn seasons. __________ *Correspondent authors: E-mail: sushil2000_01@yahoo.co.in; rashmikumarijnu@gmail.com; Phone: 91-11-26735177; Fax: 91-11-26741658