CHARACTER ASSOCIATION OF YIELD AND ITS COMPONENTS IN UPLAND COTTON, GOSSYPIUM HIRSUTUM L

Abstract

Six American upland cotton varieties, namely, CRIS-9, CRIS-5A, CRIS-134, CIM496, CIM-499 and CIM-506 were compared for their average performance and character association at Junejo Farm Talho Malho near Umerkot during 2017. Characters studied were earliness (first sympodial node number, days to open first flower and first boll, first pick at 90 days after sowing and second pick at 130 days after sowing), yield (yield per plant, yield per hectare), yield related characters (number of sympodia per plant, number of bolls per plants, boll weight and seed index) and ginning outturn. Correlation coefficients were also determined between all possible combinations of above characters. The most economically important combination form cotton grower’s point of view is the seed cotton yield which was highly, positively and significantly correlated with first sympodial node
number (r=0.616), number of sympodial branch (r=0.828) days to open first flower (=0.516) and first boll (r=0.656), number of bolls per plant, (r=0.644) and boll weight (r=0.700). This shows strong associated with earliness attributes and also with yield contributing attributes. Similarly, days to open first flower show highly significant positive correlation (r=0.728) with first boll opening and with number of bolls per plant (r=0.566). Number of bolls per plant was also highly and positively
correlated with seed cotton yield (r=0.644) and first sympodial node number (r=0.786) it means any change in one character in either of the direction will bring corresponding change of equal intensity to the other attribute in that specified direction.