CHARACTERIZATION AND IDENTIFICATION OF EARLY MATURING UPLAND COTTON VARIETIES

The present research was aimed at characterization and identification of early maturing upland cotton varieties. Eight varieties with morphologically distinguished traits were evaluated in a Randomized complete Block Design with three replications. The analysis of variance indicated significant differences among the varieties for all the traits studied. Mean performance suggested that cultivar Sindh-1 took minimum of 34.7 days to set first square and also opened maximum bolls of 14.0 at 80 days after sowing while CRIS-134 produced sympodial branches at lower node number of 4.7 and formed 1st effective boll at 6.7 node number. Thus both these varieties were considered as early maturing whereas Haridost as late maturing. The cultivar Sadori is though late maturing, yet recorded maximum seed cotton yield of 190.0g per plant. Significant correlation coefficient of days taken to 1st squaring with 1st sympodial branch node number and with node number to set 1st effective boll was noted whereas 1st sympodial branch node was significantly and positively correlated with node number to set 1st boll and sympodial branch length. Bolls opened at 80 days after planting and sympodial branch length was positively correlated with seedcotton yield. These correlations suggested that earlier plant characters and sympodial branch length were positively correlated with seed cotton yield. The correlations between earliness plant traits as a whole indicated that selection of one trait can indirectly but simultaneously improve other earliness and yield related traits.