Jatropha curcas: A Biodiesel Crop for California?

An overview of the development and promotion of Jatropha curcas as a new biodiesel crop for California is presented. Four research plots were established, of which two continue to be evaluated. Issues limiting the development of the crop in California are lack of cold tolerance, lack of pollination/flowering in hot/dry environments, and continuing questions concerning the real potential for developing economic yields. Germplasm has been collected from a number of areas around the world.  Differences in phenotypic characters are present among the collections, especially between Indian/South Asian and New World collections. Obvious differences have not been observed within the collections for phenotypic characters. Subsets of these collections have been surveyed for biodiversity levels with SSRs and molecular marker diversity was observed. The significance of observed SSR diversity from a plant improvement perspective has not been established, however.