Evaluation of Three Varieties of Jatropha curcas L. for Nursery Establishment in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria

Field experiment was conducted from May to August, 2016 at the Rivers State University Teaching and Research farm to evaluate the establishment of three varieties of Jatropha curcas from Ilorin, India and Lafiagi respectively in the nursery using their seeds. Results show that the seeds of the three varieties took 6-8 days to achieve 100 % germination as against 10-12 days as reported by literature. The results further revealed no significant differences (Pgreater than0.05) among the three varieties in plant height. India and Lafiagi varieties had the highest plant height of 25cm while Ilorin had 24.90cm at 12 WAP. The leaf area result showed that India variety had the broadcast leaves (288.6cm2) followed by Ilorin (258.0cm2) and Lafiagi with 204.4cm2 leaf area. The significance of the leaf area could be shown in the production of dry matter and fruit development of the plant cultivar. The number of leaves was not statistically significant from 2 to 8WAP. However, they manifested significant differences (P