Assessment of variation in volatile oil content in cardamom [Elettaria cardamomum (L.) Maton]

The volatile oil of cardamom capsules is an expensive ingredient in food preparation, beverages, perfumery and traditional medicines. The capsules of 65 promising cardamom accessions were used to evaluate the volatile oil content estimation. The volatile of cured capsules were extracted by hydro-distillation method and it was ranged from 2.2 % - 9.6%. Five cardamom accessions were observed highest volatile oil content, which was HY-3 and HY-4 (9.6 %), S1 × GG (Type 2) and SAM-5 (9.3%) and PPK-2 (9.1%). This higher volatile oil content is due to the more number of seeds per capsule, capsule maturity and curing period. The number of seeds per capsules was ranged 6.1 in SAM-3 and 17.8 in HY-3 and HY-4. In this study, we have identified 5 high volatile oil content cardamom accessions that could be used for future breeding programs for developing varieties with high yielding as well as high volatile oil content.