New Nerium (Nerium oleander) varieties

Abstract

Nerium (Nerium oleander L.) is an evergreen ornamental flowering shrub, belongs to the family Apocynaceae. This family which is commonly recognized as the dogbane family includes about 424 genera distributed in tropical and subtropical regions (Endress and Bruyns, 2000). Nerium is distributed in the Mediterranean region and subtropical Asia, is indigenous to India. The estimated area of Nerium cultivation is over 2,300 hectares with highest in southern states including Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Kerala. It is a major traditional loose flower crop grown extensively for religious offerings, garland making and puja purpose. It is also widely used for beautifying landscapes in the gardens, parks, roadsides, medians, and public spaces due to its drought tolerance, low maintenance, and pollution resistance. Nerium is also known for its medicinal uses namely, antibacterial (Derwich et al., 2010) antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and anti- nociceptive properties (Erdemoglu et al., 2008).

There is a wide variety of nerium cultivars often differentiated on the basis of flower form (single or double). and flower colour (pink, red, white, yellow etc.). University of Horticultural Sciences, Bagalkot, Karnataka, has collected more than twenty-five cultivars from different parts of the country and evaluated for their morphological traits (Pavankumar and Parashuram, 2019: Saniya et al., 2023). Further, we have also initiated systematic crop improvement program to breed the novel varieties and hybrids. During February, 2026 in the 11^th State Seed Sub Committee for Horticulture Crops of Government of Karnataka, the University of Horticultural Sciences, Bagalkot, Karnataka has released three Nerium varieties namely, Krishna Prabha Dishanth, Krishna Prabha Ratna and Krishna Prabha Ushashri for commercial cultivation.