Morphological and physico-chemical characteristics of three local pineapple [Ananas comosus (L.) Merr.] cultivars grown under subtropical region of Bhutan

Although the area under pineapple [Ananas comosus (L.) Merr.] cultivation has been increasing over the years in Bhutan, information on the morphological characters and yield performances of the cultivars grown in the country are literally absent. In this study, three landrace cultivars of pineapple (Accession ID: PV1, PV2 and PV3) collected from Sarpang District in Bhutan were evaluated for their morphological and physico-chemical characteristics.

The field experiment was carried out in Randomised Complete Block Design with five replications at Agriculture Research and Development Centre, Samtenling, Bhutan in 2018. Seventeen morphological characteristics and five physico-chemical parameters were evaluated to record the variation amongst three accessions.

The mean fruit weight of PV1 (1.4 kg), PV2 (0.9 kg) and PV3 (0.5 kg) were statistically significant. The fruit yield of pineapple accession PV1 (47.9 t/ha) was significantly higher than that of PV2 (30.0 t/ha) and PV3 (16.7 t/ha). Accession PV1 (14.3 °Brix) and PV3 (14.4 °Brix) had significantly higher total soluble solid (TSS) than that of accession PV2 (10.4 °Brix). Sugar to acid ratio of PV2 (46.81) was significantly higher than that of PV3 (34.95) but not with that of PV1 (41.54).

 Absence of molecular technique in characterisation of pineapples accessions.

This is the first report of characterisation of pineapple cultivars in Bhutan. Based on the result of this study, National Seed Board of Bhutan released Accession PV1 and PV3 as pineapple variety ‘Samtenling Kongtsey 1’ and ‘Samtenling Kongtsey 2’ respectively in 2020 for cultivation in Bhutan.