LETTER TO THE EDITOR Revisited Jatropha curcas as an oil plant of multiple benefits: critical research needs and prospects for the future P. C. Abhilash & Pankaj Srivastava & Sarah Jamil & Nandita Singh Received: 9 June 2010 / Accepted: 29 September 2010 / Published online: 9 October 2010 # Springer-Verlag 2010 1 Introduction and background During the last 10 years, Jatropha curcas L. has gained considerable attention as a potential feedstock of biodiesel and many Jatropha plantations have been established in tropical and subtropical regions worldwide (Li et al. 2010). Jatropha is regarded as an oil plant with multiple attributes, uses and considerable potential (Openshaw 2000). Its peculiar features like drought tolerance, rapid growth, easy propagation (Heller 1996), higher oil content than other oil crops (Achten et al. 2008), small gestation period, adapta- tion to a wide range of environmental conditions, and the optimum plant size and architecture (that make the seed collection more convenient) make it as a special candidate (Fig. 1) for further consideration (Sujatha et al. 2008). The multiple attributes of Jatropha is presented in Table 1 and has been extensively reviewed by many workers. The utilization of various parts of Jatropha was reviewed by many scientists started about one decade ago by Gubitz et al. (1999). In addition, some of the recent review articles provide status and perspectives of Jatropha biodiesel program in various countries (e.g., India (Biswas et al. 2010, Jain and Sharma 2010), UK (Janaun and Ellis 2010), Malaysia (Lim and Teong 2010), Sweden (Arvidsson et al. 2010), China (Ye et al. 2009), Thailand (Siriwardhana et al. 2009)). Zhou and Thomson (2009) highlight the current status of biofuel production including the national devel- opment targets, strategies, incentives, and policies in Asia’ s largest producing countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, The Philippines, Thailand, China, and India. Although large- scale investment in Jatropha plantations have been made throughout tropical areas, particularly in the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and South and South Eastern Asia (Li et al. 2010), many of the field promises offered by this shrub is yet to be finalized. So there is an urgent need to retabulate the real economics of this species in terms of yield and other ecosystem benefits as well as potential ecological threats, such as the impact on the local biodiversity in using bioenergy crops on a large scale. Furthermore, still there are several environmental, econom- ical, social, technological, and toxicological issues related to the plant selection, cultivation, maintenance and man- agement of Jatropha plantations and biodiesel production existing across the world and these concerns should be addressed in detail and the gaps in the knowledge should be elucidated and transferred. This article was aimed to highlight all these issues and provides a very brief commentary on the progress in Jatropha research during the last 10 years and to identify the critical research needs for developing and implementing successful Jatropha biodiesel program worldwide and the possible ways to maximize its multipurpose uses. Responsible Editor: Henner Hollert PC Abhilash, Pankaj Srivastava, Sarah Jamil, and Nandita Singh contributed equally to this paper. P. C. Abhilash : P. Srivastava : S. Jamil : N. Singh (*) Eco-Auditing Group, National Botanical Research Institute, Council of Scienctific & Industrail Research, Rana Pratap Marg, Lucknow 226 001, Uttar Pradesh, India e-mail: nanditasingh8@yahoo.co.in Present Address: P. C. Abhilash School for Environmental Science, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University (A Central University), Lucknow 226 025, Uttar Pradesh, India e-mail: pcabhilash@gmail.com Environ Sci Pollut Res (2011) 18:127–131 DOI 10.1007/s11356-010-0400-5