Industrial Crops and Products 62 (2014) 373–379 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Industrial Crops and Products jo ur nal home p age: www.elsevier.com/locate/indcrop Association of growth and yield parameters with bioactive phytoconstituents in selection of promising turmeric genotypes Shikha Singh, Suprava Sahoo, Swagatika Dash, Sanghamitra Nayak ∗ Centre of Biotechnology, Siksha O Anusandhan University, Khandagiri, Bhubaneswar, 751003 Orissa, India a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 4 April 2014 Received in revised form 25 August 2014 Accepted 1 September 2014 Keywords: Bioactive phytoconstituents Yield parameters Coefficient correlation GC–MS analysis Promising turmeric genotype a b s t r a c t Turmeric is an economically important plant for production of curcumin, oleoresin and essential oil. The correlation of yield parameters with phytoconstituent content (curcumin, oleoresin, and essential oil) of 10 selected turmeric genotypes was analyzed to find out a promising turmeric genotype. Leaf area exerted high positive significant correlation with yield and phytoconstituent content followed by tiller number. Among the selected genotypes, P40 and P44 recorded for highest leaf biomass of 450 ± 90.05 g and P32 recorded for highest rhizome biomass of 850 ± 95.05 g followed by P44 having 800 ± 95.05 g yield/plant. Leaf blotch disease was reported only in P36 and P37. Accession P36 yielded high curcumin content (8.8%), P44 yielded high oleoresin content (15%), high leaf oil content (1.9%) and high rhizome oil content (2%). In GC–MS analysis alpha-phellandrene content was highest (63.91%) in P40 and Ar-tumerone was highest (63.69%) in P44. Altogether, P36, P40, and P44 were found to be better in terms of agronomical, yield attributing traits and high bioactive phytoconstituents. This study provides insight on the relative influence of growth and yield parameters on the phytoconstituents. The identified promising genotypes could be useful as parental materials in cultivar and variety development for the various natural health product industries. © 2014 Published by Elsevier B.V. 1. Introduction Turmeric (Curcuma longa L.) is a commercially important medic- inal plant and plays an important role in the Indian economy. India is the largest manufacturer of turmeric and its value added prod- ucts which cost more than 50% of the world trade (Muthusamy, 2013). The rhizome of turmeric consists of curcumin, various cur- cuminoids, essential oil, and oleoresin which exhibit a wide range of activities, e.g., food colour in cheese, spices, cereal products, pick- les potato flakes, soups, ice-creams, yoghourt, as hypolipidemic, hepatoprotective antibacterial, antifungal, anticancer, antioxidant, insect repellent, and anti snake venom agent (Prasad and Aggarwal, 2011). Turmeric oil is used in aromatherapy, perfume industry and in the preparation of mosquito repellents. The oleoresin in turmeric is used in flavouring industries as a replacement of powdered rhi- zome (Prasad and Aggarwal, 2011). India produces 11 lakh tonnes of turmeric per year which contributes 78% of the total production in world, while China contributed 8%, Myanmar 4%, Nigeria and ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 9437061976. E-mail addresses: shikhsingh@gmail.com (S. Singh), supi.sos2000@gmail.com (S. Sahoo), swagatikachinu@gmail.com (S. Dash), sanghamitran24@gmail.com (S. Nayak). Bangladesh together produces 6% of them globally. Also India is the largest exporter of value added products of turmeric and United Arab Emirates is the main importer of turmeric from India account- ing for 18% of the total exports after United States of America (USA) with 8%. The other countries which imported turmeric from India are Bangladesh, Japan, Sri Lanka, United Kingdom, Malaysia, South Africa, The Netherlands, and Saudi Arabia which accounts for 75% of the world imports. United States of America imports 97% of turmeric and its value added products from India (Muthusamy, 2013; Angles et al., 2011). The export demand of turmeric is ris- ing higher in the last few years on account of increased non-food as well as food use in some countries. Now the use of turmeric and its value added products are spreading globally so the pro- duction of turmeric has to be increased to meet up the national and international requirements. This can be achieved by increas- ing both the area of cultivation and the yield per unit area. Hence the essential priority is to develop varieties of turmeric with high contents of bioactive phytoconstituents, i.e., plants with higher content of curcumin/oleoresin/essential oil. These value added products of turmeric have major industrial applications including the production of drugs, cosmetics, flavouring agents, etc. Because of constantly increasing worldwide demand, there is a pressing need to increase productivity of turmeric yield as well as its phyto- constituents. Therefore, the production of rhizome and leaf biomass http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2014.09.001 0926-6690/© 2014 Published by Elsevier B.V.