Field Screening of Cotton Genotypes for Drought Tolerance on the Basis of Yield and Fibre Tra

The yield and fibre traits of cotton are adversely influenced by moisture stress. Thus, it is great issue for cotton physiologists and breeders to develop water stress tolerable genotypes. In current research, 12 cultivars such as CRIS-134, CRIS-342, CIM-499, Sadori, CIM-506, Chandi, BH-160, Sindh-1, NIAB-78, CIM-496, CIM-534 and Bt-cotton (Australian origin) were screened for water stress tolerance with four replications in factorial design in Pakistan during 2010. Water stress caused significant reduction in all yield as well fibre traits. The genotypes also differed significantly for yield and fibre quality traits studied. The treatments x genotypes interactions were significant indicating that genotypes responded variably over stress environments suggesting that plant breeders can select the best performing genotypes for moisture deficit environments. Among genotypes screened, Sadori, CRIS-134,Chandi, CRIS-342,CIM-506 and Sindh-1 showed good performance due to minimum decline under stress conditions for majority of the traits. Hence, these cotton genotypes were identified as drought tolerant and can be further utilized in breeding programmes to develop new drought tolerant breeding material.