Abstract:
An experiment was conducted with Tossa Jute (Corchorus olitorius L.) cultivars O-9897 and O-4 to study the early vegetative growth and fibre yield. Both the cultivars showed congrous gain in plant height. Leaf spread increased up to 40 days and declined thereafter. Leaf number per plant, length and breadth of leaf increased with the increase in age of the plants. Total dry matter production per plant increased rapidly up to 30 days in both the cultivars. At the time of first harvest at 20 days after emergence (DAE), the leaf dry weight became double (2.37 g) as compared to that of the stem (1.31 g). Stem dry weight increased rapidly during the period of 20 to 30 days and thereafter the stem maintained higher dry weight till the senescence of the plant. The RGR, NAR and LAR were relatively higher at the early stage of growth and then began to decrease sharply with the increase in age of the plants in both the cultivars. Both RGR and NAR increased a little at 50 to 60 DAE. There were significant positive correlations between early growth attributes viz., plant height, leaf number per plant, length and breadth of leaf and LAI, and fibre yield. It is concluded that there is an ample scope of increasing fibre yield through vigourous vegetative growth at early stage.