Jatropha curcas or physic nut is a small tree that in tropical climates produces fruits
with seeds containing ~38% oil. The physic nut has the potential to be highly productive and is
amenable to subculture in vitro and to genetic modification. It also displays remarkable
diversity and is relatively easy to cross hybridize within the genus. Thanks to these promising
features J. curcas is emerging as a promising oil crop and is gaining commercial interest
among the biofuel research communities. However as a crop physic nut has been an economic
flop since 2012 because the species was not fully domesticated and the average productivity
was less than 2 t ha which is below the threshold of profitability.^7 t ha could be reached
and it is contributing to new markets in some countries. As such it is important fro research
to focus on the physiology and selective breeding of Jatropha .This book provides a positive
global update on Jatropha a crop that has suffered despite its promising agronomic and
economic potential. The editors have used their collective expertise in agronomy botany
selective breeding biotechnology genomics and bioinformatics to seek out high-quality
contributions that address the bottleneck features in order to improve the economic trajectory
of physic nut breeding.
