Development of interspecific and intergeneric hybrids among jatropha-related species and verification of the hybrids using EST-SSR markers

Jatropha curcas (jatropha) is an important non-edible oilseed crop with potential as a raw material for biofuel production. Although J. curcas has 30-35% oil content in its seeds, it has low seed yield (< 2 ton/ha) and thus cannot become an economically viable crop. However, jatropha has many related species and genera such as J. integerrima, J. multifida, J. podagrica and Ricinus communis that are suitable for interspecific and intergeneric hybridization. The desirable features that can be obtained from these species are high number of inflorescences from J. integerrima, large fruit size from J. multifida, high oil content from J. podagrica and raceme-type inflorescence from R. communis. We were initially successful in producing hybrids between J. curcas and these related species. Hybridity was confirmed using expressed sequence tag (EST)-simple sequence repeat markers developed from the J. curcas EST database.