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Corchorus olitorius L. jute is a natural fiber crop that is very susceptible to salinity stress. Salinity in soil is a serious threat to tossa jute cultivation in salt-prone regions of Bangladesh. Development of salinity stress tolerant tossa jute variety is a crying need in Bangladesh. Hence, 22 tossa jute genotypes were investigated in an augmented design against 7.86-7.93 dSm -1 salinity stress at coastal regions of Bangladesh during 2017-2019. Salt-tolerant jute genotypes were phenotypically screened out based on survivability, vegetative growth, plant height, base diameter, and fiber yield capacity. Among all genotypes, Acc. 4160 and Acc. 2311 showed good fiber yield (18.0 and 13.8 g plant-1, respectively) with the lowest mortality rate (5.67 and 8.0%, respectively). Acc. 1381, Acc. 2307, Acc. 1334, Acc. 1381 and the pre-released varieties, namely O-9897, BJRI Tossa Pat 5, JRO-524 (Green) were also found good for the aforesaid traits. Among the studied characters, high heritability in a broad sense, genetic advance (%) of mean and significant associations were found which contribute to fiber yield significantly. According to the Clustering and principal component analyses, the relatively salt-tolerant genotypes of cluster II (Acc. 4160, Acc. 2311, Acc. 2307, JRO-524 (Green), Acc. 4327, BJRI Tossa Pat 5, Acc. 1334 & Acc. 1381) could be used as breeding materials and sources of salt-tolerant genes to develop salt-tolerant tossa jute variety., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (© 2022 The Author(s).)

Background and Aim of the Study: Tossa jute (Corchorus olitorius) is a natural fibre crop produces good quality fiber having great demand for industrial uses. High yielding tossa jute variety is very important in Bangladesh., Materials and Methods: Bangladesh Jute Research Institute (BJRI) has developed a new tossa jute variety (BJRI Tossa Pat 7) through pure line selection (PLS) from another pre-released variety named OM-1 during 2017. The new variety was evaluated for fiber yield and attributing phonological traits through comparing with another pre-released variety named BJRI Tossa Pat 5 (O-795) in RCB design at six locations during 2015-2018., Results: Distinct morphological traits i.e. ovate lanceolate glossy leaves; full green plant were found in MG-1 and stem & stipule red; ovate lanceolate leaves in O-795. MG-1 showed higher fiber yield (3.39-3.40 t ha -1 ) where, O-795 showed 3.10-3.22 t ha -1 as means of their maximum performances for three years at both farmers' plots and research fields. MG-1 gave higher plant height, base diameter, fiber yield than O-795 at both research stations and farmers' fields. Even after sowing at 10-15 March, MG-1 gave late flowering; lower leaf size, leaf angle, green leaf biomass and node number; maximum inter-nodal length, bark diameter, bark thickness and fiber bundle cells; and finally golden bright quality fiber than O-795. If both varieties were sown at 2 nd to 3 rd week of March, and harvested at 110 days old, MG-1 gave 5-7% higher fiber yield than O-795., Conclusion: Undoubtedly, MG-1 is a good tossa jute variety for its fiber yield and quality than pre-released varieties., Recommendation: MG-1 having good fiber yield would be used for commercial cultivation by the farmers to contribute to the national economy., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (© 2021 Bangladesh Jute Research Institute, Ministry of Agriculture, Dhaka, Bangladesh.)

Jute, the second most important natural fibre crop after cotton in the world. Bangladesh occupied the first position for jute fibre production and exportation after India among south-east Asian countries. Tossa jute is cultivated more (80-85%) here among the commercial cultivation of jute and allied fibre crops. It produces quality fibre but yield is low due to stress susceptibility compared to capsularis jute. The self-pollination nature and sexual incompatibility between two jute species (C. capsularis and C. olitorius ) cause narrower genetic base and restrict genetic exchange. So, intra specific hybridization using diversified jute germplasms or genetic change will be the best option to the jute breeders for genetic improvement of existing cultivars. Hence, 20 tossa jute genotypes were investigated through field based morphological study (RCBD) and laboratory oriented anatomical study (CRD) for yield and yield attributing morpho-anatomical variability at BJRI during March, 2019 to July, 2020. Among 20 tossa jute genotypes, Acc. 1318, O-043-7-9(G), Acc. 4311, Acc. 1306, O-0411-10-4, O-049-1-3, O-0512-6-2, Acc. 4160 showed good results for yield and yield related morphological traits at 120 days after sowing and stem anatomical traits at 100 days after sowing. Higher significant genotypic correlation coefficient values were recorded than phenotypic associations among all the morphological traits. Plant height, fresh weight, fibre yield content gave high heritability (>80%) in broad sense along with possibility of more genetic advance in percentage. The average inter-cluster distances were higher than the average intra-cluster distances, which shows the presence of wide genetic diversity among the genotypes of different clusters than those of the same cluster. The first three principal components, whose Eigen values are greater than one, accounted for 99.96% of the total variation among the studied characters. The information obtained from this investigation is useful in planning further breeding programme for tossa jute improvement., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (© 2021 Bangladesh Jute Research Institute.)