Genetic variation in black pepper (Piper nigrum L) accessions for piperine, essential oil and oleoresin, the biochemical principles of quality

Twenty elite high yielding blackpepper accessons with field tolerance to pollubeetle and phytophthora footrot were evaluated for biochemical principles of quality namely, piperine, essential oil and oleoresin. Two accessions, 7293 and 7252 recorded more than 6.5 per cent piperine which was greater than the maximum recorded value in the black pepper. Accession 7211 had high (5.87%) content of essential oil, while, accessions 7289,7276, 7229,7232 and 7252 211 had high amount of oleoresin. The clustering based on biochemical principles showed that the accessions can be grouped to five major clusters. Majority of the accessions belonged to the cluster V with high piperine, medium oil content and low oleoresin content. Correlation studies indicated that there is no correlation between yield and biochemical principles.