Characterizing the Agro-morphological Diversity of Corchorus olitorius L. Accessions in Botswana

Aim: To evaluate the genetic diversity of the local and exotic accessions of this important crop.

Study Design: The experiment was laid in a Random Complete Block Design (RCBD).

Place and Duration of the Study: The pot experiment was carried in a greenhouse at the Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural Resources, BUAN, Botswana. Study was conducted during January - May 2022.

Methodology: The 49 accessions were planted in plastic bags in replications -. In each pot four seeds were sown and after emergence thinned to two plants per pot. The morphological characteristics were measured and recorded based on quantitative and qualitative traits following the International Board of Plant Genetic Resources (IPBGR) descriptors for Corchorus spp.

Results: Results from the analysis of variance, simple correlation and multivariate analysis demonstrated high variation among the studied accessions. Accessions such as Bafia, Aziga, ExCameroon, Local big leaves, TOT6684, MLJM4, MLJM5, SUD2, SUD3 had the highest fresh leaf biomass compared to other accessions and could be used as potential parental lines for improvement in leaf yield. Amongst the studied accessions, Delele2, Delele3, Panda and Panda1 (all from Botswana) had few numbers of days to 50% flowering, therefore can be selected for early maturity, a mechanism that most of plants used to escape the abiotic stress. Significant correlation between the leaf yield and related attributes indicated the potential accessions to use for foliage yield improvement. The principal component analysis results revealed that variations in the accessions and the cluster analysis grouped the accessions based on similarities of the morphological characters and to limited extent on their geographical origin.

Conclusions: Significant variations were found among all the accessions used in this experiment for the studied morphological characters indicating the extent of genetic variability present among them. Irrespective of origins, more diversity was observed for all the traits in the studied accessions.