Performance of Tamarind (Tamarindus indica L.) Accessions under Dryland Conditions

Background: The research was conducted at the ICAR-CRIDA Hayatnagar Research Farm in Hyderabad, India. The plant material consisting of tamarind trees that were planted in 1998 with a 5 m spacing to improve the morphological and reproductive characteristics of elite genotypes as well as quality among the forty tamarind accessions maintained at the research farm. The experiment was started in 1998 and observations were taken over the fruiting season of 2020-2021 with forty tamarind accessions, the experiments were established in a randomized block design. The trees were identified for their consistent health and development. Methods: Biometric observations mainly average number of flowers per inflorescence, average number of inflorescence per Branch, average number of branches per tree, average fruit weight (g), average yield per plant (kg), fruit, pulp, seed weights as well as shell, fibre, fruit, number of normal seeds per pod as well as damaged number of seeds per pod were recorded and analyzed statistically. Result: Significant differences among the tamarind accessions evaluated, NZB(S), Hasanur #5, Salem 132, NTI-14 and SMG-3 recorded the highest values in all the growth, pod and yield characters. NZB(S) recorded the highest number of flowers per inflorescence (14.62) while Hasanur # 5 recorded the highest number of inflorescence per branch (13.87). In yield attributes, NZB(S) recorded the highest average yield per plant (kg) (15.72) followed by Hasanur #5 (15.09), Salem 132 (14.81) and NTI-14 (14.65). The results revealed that NZB(S) showed the highest mean performance in terms of growth, yield and quality characters. The best performing accessions are being multiplied through vegetative propagation methods for planting on large scale in different locations.