TUDY ON THE FIBRE QUALITY IMPROVEMENT THROUGH INTERSPECIFIC HYBRIDIZATION BETWEEN Gossypium hirsutum (AMERICAN COTTON) AND Gossypium barbadense (EGYPTIAN COTTON)

Abstract

An investigation was carried out on eight genotypes of cotton where four genotypes were under the species Gossypium hirsutum and another four species from Gossypium barbadense. Since the fiber quality of Gossypium barbadense (Egyptian cotton) is superior to Gossypium hirsutum (American cotton), so an attempt was undertaken to produce interspecific hybrids with a view to incorporate desirable traits from both the species. Before going to operate hybridization program, the parental lines were evaluated for different morphophysiological characters. The mean values of seed cotton yield was higher in American cotton than that of Egyptian cotton, The MS (mean squares ) were significant for all the selected characters, indicated ample variation among the eight genotypes for the selected characters. The CV (%) coefficient of variation ranged 3.78 to 15.78. The highest CV (%) against plant height at harvest suggested that plant height in cotton was highly sensitive to environmental conditions. Among the four genotypes under American cotton (Gosypium hirsutum) JA-08/E produced the highest seed cotton yield (116.2 g/plant) whereas, among the four genotypes under Egyptian cotton (Gossypium barbadense) JA-10/202 produced the highest seed cotton yield of 81.37 g/plant, hence the yield potential of American cotton is higher than that of Egyptian cotton in our country. Different genetic parameters were estimated on 12 characters, where the highest heritability was measured for days to 50% flowering (95.02%) but none of the characters showed high heritability coupled with high genetic gain as percentage of mean. High heritability along with high genetic advanced provide better response selection expected in next generation. A set of 28 experimental hybrids were produced in a half diallel fashion from 8x7 cross combinations. Number of fruit set was lower as compared to number of bud emasculated followed by pollination because of environmental and physiological causes. The crossability estimated 100% for the cross JA-08/ A x JA-12/203. Therefore, the segregants derive from this cross might result super quality cotton varieties suitable for our country. Since the requirement raw cotton is high but area under production is little, desirable hybrids or inbred varieties must be needed to fulfill the demand of the farmers of the country.