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ASSESSMENT OF YIELD-RELATED MORHOLOGICAL MEASURES FOR EARLINESS IN UPLAND COTTON (GOSSYPIUM HIRSUTUM L.)

SAEED AHMAD¹, SAGHIR AHMAD²*, MUHAMMAD ASHRAF³, NOOR-UL-ISLAM KHAN⁴ AND NADEEM IQBAL⁵

Abstract: Assessment of yield-related morphological measures for earliness is a key factor for developing short duration varieties in cotton. For this purpose, 13 upland cotton genotypes were used for studying different morphological traits related with earliness i.e., days to first flower, first sympodial branch node number, sympodial branch number with first effective boll, sympodial branch length, boll opening (%) after 120 days of planting, boll weight and seed cotton yield per plant. All the varieties differed significantly for all these traits showing a variation range of 41 to 48, 5.0 to 9.0, 5.0 to 10.3, 14.2 to 35.7 cm, 53.0 to 81.0%, 2.7 to 4.5g, 126.0 to 196.3g, respectively. The new strain VH-144 and VH-156 exhibited great yield potential for earliness as they took minimum days to first flower (40.5 and 41.4, respectively) and more boll opening percentage at 120 days after planting (81 and 80.9, respectively). In order to make rapid improvement in earliness, correlation between choice parameters related with earliness were also determined. Highly positively significant correlation existed between days taken to first flower and sympodial branch node number with first effective boll (r= 0.807), days taken to first flower and boll opening percentage at 120 days after planting (r= 0.705), sympodial branch node number with first effective boll and boll opening percentage at 120 days after planting (0.501), whereas negative correlation was found between sympodial branch length and boll opening percentage at 120 days after planting (r=-0.663), boll weight and seed cotton yield (r=-0.281). It can thus be concluded that selection for early setting of first flower, lower value of first sympodial branch with first effective boll and boll opening after 120 days of planting can lead to development of early maturing variety in cotton.

¹Cotton Research Station, Vehari, Pakistan,

²Cotton Botanist, Cotton Research Station, Vehari, Pakistan,

³Department of Botany, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan

⁴Director, Cotton Research Institute, Faisalabad, Pakistan

⁵Regional Agricultural Economic Development Centre, Vehari, Pakistan.

Corresponding author: saghirahmad_1@yahoo.com