International Journal of Agriculture Sciences ISSN: 0975-3710&E-ISSN: 0975-9107, Volume 14, Issue 12, 2022 12126 Research Article PRINCIPAL COMPONENT ANALYSIS, EUCLIDEAN CLUSTERING OF TOSSA JUTE (CORCHORUS OLITORIUS L.) GENOTYPES FOR THE DROUGHT STRESS TOLERANCE SAWARKAR A. 1 *, PRADHAN A. 2 , YUMNAM S. 3 , RAMAN R.B. 4 , GHOSH S.C. 5 AND MUKHERJEE S. 6 1 School of Agriculture and Rural Development, Integrated Rural Development & Management (IRDM), Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute, Narendrapur, Kolkata, 700 103, India 2 Sage University, Bhopal, 462022 3 Central Agriculture University, Imphal, 795004 4 Sasya Shyamala Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute, Arapanch, Kolkata, 700 150 5 Division of Genetics and Plant Breeding, School of Agriculture and Rural Development, Integrated Rural Development & Management (IRDM), Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute, Narendrapur, Kolkata, 700 103, India 6 Professor and Dean, College of Agricuture, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Mohanpur, 741252, West Bengal, India *Corresponding Author: Email - annu.sawarkar@gmail.com Received: December 02, 2022; Revised: December 25, 2022; Accepted: December 28, 2022; Published: December 30, 2022 Citation: Sawarkar A., et al., (2022) Principal Component Analysis, Euclidean Clustering of Tossa Jute ( Corchorus olitorius L.) Genotypes for The Drought Stress Tolerance. International Journal of Agriculture Sciences, ISSN: 0975-3710 & E-ISSN: 0975-9107, Volume 14, Issue 12, pp.- 12126-12133. Copyright: Copyright©2022 Sawarkar A., et al., This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credit ed. Academic Editor / Reviewer: Dr Hemangi Mehta Introduction Jute, adorably called as “Golden Fibre”. Among more than 100 species of this genus, only two species namely white jute ( Corchorus capsularis L.) and Tossa jute (Corchorus olitorius L.) are commercially cultivated. Jute belonged to the family Malvaceae (formerly, it was placed in Tiliaceae family) having chromosome number (2n)=14. (Jute 6). A few tetraploid (2n)=28 are also identified. Around 215 species, subspecies, varieties and land races are contributed in the genus corchorus, where 60 species are more important and shows some extent of variability [1]. The cultivated white jute and tossa jute has been evolved through conventional breeding and pure line selection based on their yield and other yield attributing characters[2]. The white jute was evolved in the Indo-Burma region and tossa jute evolved in Tropical Africa [3]. Jute fibre is called as bast fibre. The taste of Corchorus capsularisleaves is unpleasant due to the presence of bitter glucoside-‘Corchorin’ and taste bitter on chewing. Hence it is often known as ‘Tita’(bitter) pat, while Corchorus olitoriusis ‘Mitha’ (sweet) pat. Corchorus urticifolius, has been identified as the common ancestor of the both cultivated species through phylogenetic analysis with the help of 38 polymorphic nuclear microsatellites.The nuclear progenitor of C. olitorius was found the C. urticifolius but not identified for C. Capsularis [4]. The quality of tossa jute fibre yield is finer, softer, stronger and more lustrous than that of whitish, reddish or greyish fibre in colour in white jute depending upon the nature of retting of water. In case of jute area, production and productivity, India ranked first which is followed by Bangladesh, China, Uzbekisthan etc. During 2020-21 year, India produced raw jute fibre of 43.18 million bales from 0.38 million hectare of area with an average productivity of 20.51 q/ha(www.jutecomm.gov.in). Both cultivated species is self-pollinated, however 15% natural outcrossing is occurred in tossa jute and 5% in white jute [5, 6]. The wild species of jute are the potential source for abiotic and biotic stress tolerant genes as well as important genetic resources for the improvement jute varieties. It has been reported thattossa jute is higher yielder than white jute except in inundated regime. It cannot tolerate in the abiotic stress. There is strong sexual incompatibility barrier exist between the two cultivated species. Indeed, they are distantly related and their maternal origin are different but the genetic variability present at the intraspecific level is low [7]. Earlier research work was mainly focused on the development pureline varieties, where plant height and quality of fibre were main concern. As a result, the genetic diversity is narrowed down in both cultivated species. For example, the average genetic diversity of Corchorus olitorius and Corchorus capsularis was 7.2% (range 2.8 –12.3%) and 7.6% (range 2.2–13.1%), respectively. Therefore, there is an urgent need in genetic improvement and development high yielding varieties in jute. International Journal of Agriculture Sciences ISSN: 0975-3710 & E-ISSN: 0975-9107, Volume 14, Issue 12, 2022, pp.-12126-12133. Available online at https://bioinfopublication.org/pages/jouarchive.php?id=BPJ0000217 Abstract: Jute is adorably called as “Golden Fibre”. Two species namely Corchorus capsularis and Corchorus olitorius arecommercially cultivated in India. It is the second-largest natural bast fiber in the world after cotton. Because of climatic change, low and erratic nature of rainfall over space and time the crop is often subjected to phasic spell of drought during early growth stagewhich frequently leads to crop failure or poor fibre yield. 60 genotypes of olitorius jute were assess for the drought tolerant genotypes, raised in randomised block design in three replications in two regimes i.e., Control and Drought. All the characters were observed low to high reduction in dry matter. Based on the genetic distance, eight and seven clusters were formed in control and drought environment using agglomerative cluster analysis. In drought condition, cluster VII includes genotypes like OIN791, OIJ177 and OEX29 with the highest number of relative mean values of plant height, bark thickness and lower number of days to 50% flowering while in control conditions, five standard varieties were found highest mean values for plant height, base diameter and fibre weight. The principal component analysis studied showed first three component maximum variation i.e.,79.86%. The biplot analysis indicated nine genotypes were in maximum proximity with the plant height, base diameter, bark thickness and fibre weight. Various drought tolerant indices like Drought Susceptible Index(DSI), Stress tolerance (TOL), Stress tolerance index (STI), Yield index (YI) and Yield stability index (YSI) values showed superiority in OIN791, OIJ177, S19, OEX29, JRO2407 and OEX039. Keywords: Drought, Abiotic stress, Cluster analysis and PCA, Tossa jute, Drought tolerance index