GENETIC VARIABILITY STUDY OF TOSSA JUTE (Corchorus olitorius) GENOTYPES

Forty five accessions of tossa jute germplasm along with two varieties collected from Gene Bank Department of Bangladesh Jute Research Institute were characterized at Jute Agriculture Experimental Station, Jagir, Manikganj during April 2016 to September 2016. The experiment was laid out in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. The accessions were characterized for eight morpho-agronomic attributes as per Corchorus descriptor in order to select superior genotypes for the genetic improvement of tossa jute. Considerable ranges of variability were observed in plant height, base diameter, green bark thickness, dry fibre weight, dry stick weight, green weight with leaves and fibre percentage. The plant height ranged from 2.80 -4.20 m. Base diameter ranged from 14.90 - 20.74 mm. Dry fibre weight ranged from 9.20 - 40.00g/plant. It was highest in accession 3730 (40.00 g/plant) which was followed by accessions 5086 (30 g/plant), 1076 (29.00 g/plant), 3724 (28.80 g/plant), 2966 (28.60 g/plant). The highest fibre % was recorded in accession 3730 (37.03 %/plant). Based on major yield contributing characters accessions 3730, 5086, 1076, 3724 and 2966 performed better in most of the cases than the control varieties O-9897 and O-795.