Comparative Studies on Seed Dimensions of Pongamia Pinnata Accessions Collected from Hilly Zone and Southern Transition Zone Falling Under Chikamagaluru and Shivamogga Districts, Karnataka, India

Pongamia pinnata (L) Pierre, belonging to subfamily Papilionoideae is a medium sized tree native to humid and subtropical environments. Seeds of Pongamia have about 30–35 percent oil and up to 27–28 percent oil can be expressed in crusher. The present research analyzes the variations with respect to seed dimensions of P. pinnata in the study area.. Seed length, width and thickness showed significant variation within the zone and between the zones. Arithmetic Mean diameter, Geometric Mean Diameter, Square Mean Diameter and Equivalent Mean diameter also showed significant variations between three accessions from two different zones. But Aspect ratio has not shown any significant variation between the zones. Unlike Aspect ratio significant variations between the zones were observed for Sphericity, Surface area and Seed Volume. Significant variations within the zone for above parameters suggest existence of microclimate. Seed source variability for P. pinnata was largely attributed to the heterogeneity of the genotypes and the genotype X environment interactions.