Diversity assessment of local ginger germplasm using morphological and chemical properties

The Philippines is fortunate to be endowed with over 1000 species of plants that have medicinal uses. The Department of Health (DOH), Philippines, prioritized and promoted ten medicinal plants for use in traditional herbal medicine and alternative health care. Included in the list is the ginger, Zingiber officinale Roscoe, or locally known as luya. The National Plant Genetic Resources Laboratory (NPGRL) holds at least 40 local collections of ginger from different provinces of the Philippines. Passport information and phenoptypic data of these accessions were gathered, encoded and documented for enhanced utilization for research and crop improvement studies. Regeneration, characterization, conservation and chemical analysis of ginger germplasm were performed at the Institute of Plant Breeding (IPB). Forty-five ginger accessions were characterized while yield and post-harvest data were obtained from 27 regenerated accessions. Characterization was done from vegetative to post-harvest stage. Morphological diversity was using the Shannon-Weaver Index (H') and Pecetti index for qualitative and quantitative traits, respectively. Based on the diversity analysis, thirteen morphological traits appropriately describe the high diversity of the germplasm collection. Intensity of green color on leaves, density of adventitious root on the rhizome, rhizome texture, easiness of peeling of the skin, plant height, pseudostem diameter, number of leaves per plant, leaf length, number of rhizome per plant, weight of rhizomes per plant, number of internodes in the rhizome, and rhizome length and diameter obtained high H' values. Chemical analysis was done on selected ginger accessions which included proximate composition and nutraceutical properties like antioxidant activity, flavonoid content and total phenotics. Promising accessions of ginger were identified and selected from the diverse collection based on desired morphological traits and outstanding chemical properties.