Abstract

B. Y. Abubakar, S. MuA

Variations in the leaf morphological and anatomical features of Moringa oleifera Lam. accessions from Northern Nigeria have been reported. The wide range of uses of this naturalised crop in Nigeria has in recent time witnessed increasing demand of its foliar product in nutritional, medical and ecological applications. The upsurge demand for this product needs to be balanced with new lines of improved performance to meet the supply chain of the country and beyond. To achieve this, the present study was aimed at setting the foundation of variability analysis based on morphology and anatomical features of the leaf to detect promising cultivars for mapping out of future breeding schemes of this multi-purpose crop. The generated data were analysed with NTSYS pc software, and the plant accessions clustered into six groups irrespective of area of collection. Out of these accessions, 16BAU from north-east part of Nigeria gave the highest leaf length measurement of 60.3 cm while 18 KGGM had the lowest value of 35.3 cm and each were formed in separate clusters of IV and III respectively.