Identification of Plant Traits for Characterization of Early Maturing Upland Cotton Varieties

Abstract

Thirteen upland cotton varieties with morphologically distinguished plant traits were evaluated so, as to characterize early maturi ng cotton. According to ANOVA test , the varieties differed significantly for all the traits studied . The varieties, in days taken to set first flower varied from 4 1 .0 to 48.0; sympodial branch node numbers 5 .5 to 9.0; I " effective bo ll setti ng branch n umber 6.3 to I 0.3; sympodi al branch len gth 14.2 to 35.7 cm; bo ll open i ng 53.0 to 81.0%; boll weight 2.7 to 4.5 g, and seed cotton yield I 26.0 to 196.3 g. Tt w as observed that most of the pl ant trai ts simultaneously favoured the varieties in th ei r characterizati on for earl i n ess. Thu s as compared to l ate m aturing vari et­ i es, ear l y  v arieties took  mi nimu m  of 41 .0 days to set fi rst flower, produced l ower  sympodial  branches at  5.5 to 6.51h n odes; set fi rst effective bo ll at 6.3 to 7.5'h nodes; prod uced shorter sympod i al bran ch es of 14.2 to 21.6 cm; opened 75.0 to 81.0% of boll s at 120 days after plantin g, gave medi um bolls of 3.0 to 3.5 g. Accordi ng to short season's classification , the varieties which opened 75 to 81% of their bolls were if picked after 145 days, the boll openi ng percent may h ave reached about 95%. Thus such varietie s could be considered as earl y maturing on es. In presen t studies, va ri eties CIM-511 , CTM-506, NIAB-999, BH- 147, CRIS-467, CRIS- 168 and CRIS-342 can be characterized as early maturi n g cotton . Si gni ficant correlation coeffic i ent (r) values between earli n ess plant tra its further su ggested that selection  of one trai t  for earl i ness can indirectl y  but  simultaneously i mprove another trait rel ated  to earliness.