Morphological Diversity among Corchorus olitorius Accessions Based on Single Linkage Cluster Analysis and Principal Component Analysis

Corchorus olitorius L. is a leaf vegetable grown in Africa as well in the Middle East. Fifteen accessions of leaf C. olitorius were collected from two National Research Institutions and Biotechnological Center and were evaluated for genetic variability using Single linkage cluster analysis (SLCA ) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA). The experiment was carried out at Babcock University Teaching and Research Farm during 2009. The experiment was laid out using a Randomized Complete Block Design ( RCBD) with three replications. The contribution of Number of leaves per plant, plant height at maturity, Fresh leaf weight, total plant weight and harvest index in the PCA leads to the conclusion that these traits contributes more to the total variation observed in the fifteen accessions of C. olitorius and therefore can be used in discriminating among the accessions of C.olitorius. BUCor 24 and BUCor 31, with high potential for number of leaves per plant, plant height at maturity, fresh leaf weight and total plant weight would make good parental stock material when breeding for C. olitorius leafy vegetative yield, while BUCor 31, and BUCor 05 are more distinct and diverse of all the accessions and can serve as sources for variability in character for C. olitorius improvement. The accessions were grouped in four major cluster by the SLCA