Establishment and Early Growth of Some Jojoba Clones in Al-Qassim Region

The present investigation was carried out to evaluate and compare agronomical characteristics of jojoba clones under Central Region of Saudi Arabia, using seven diverse female jojoba genotypes. Survival rats ranged between 91.7 to 98.0%. Highly significant differences among time periods, clones and their interaction were found for plant height and number of branches per plant. Plant height ranged from 30.5 cm in April 1st 2009 to 52.8 cm in February 1st, 2010 and branches ranged from 11.9 to 58.7 branches per plant in same period. The clones significantly differed in all studied traits. Genotypes, HA9 and HD1 recorded the highest and lowest values for plant height, respectively. For number of branches per plant, genotype HB2 had the highest value while, genotype HD1 had the lowest one. Clones HB8 and MD8 had almost similar values in most traits. For stem diameter clone HB2 recorded the highest value, while HD1 had the lowest one. Chlorophyll content ranged from 62.5 (HB2) to 73.9 (HB6). Genotype HB6 recorded the largest leaf area, the heaviest dry leaf and lowest value of specific leaf area while, genotype HA9 had the smallest leaf. Clone HB2 recorded the lowest and highest values of leaf dry weight and specific leaf area; respectively the genotypes HB8, MD8 and HD1 flowered early, while clones HA9 and HB2 were late in flowering. The results obtained in this work indicate that there is a large genetic variability among jojoba clones established at Al-Qassim Region which could permit improvement by selection and breeding.