Comparative Analysis of Yield and Fibre Traits in Newly Developed Bt and Non-Bt Cotton Hybrids

Abstract

Aims: Cotton is a major fibre crop for textile industry and farmers in the world. Despite its tremendous importance, productivity constraints are still present. To eliminate productivity problem and increase the yield, the present investigation focused on developing new Bt cotton hybrids with better yield and fibre characteristics through estimation of heterosis in different combination of Bt and Non Bt parents. Study Design: Randomized block design with three replication was used to conduct the experiment. Place and Duration of Study: The experiment was conducted at Cotton Research Unit, Dr. PDKV, Akola, Maharashtra, during Kharif 2019 & 2020. Methodology: The five diverse parents were crossed with one another as making four crosses of Bt x Bt parents and four crosses of Non-Bt x Bt parents. Eight F1 hybrids then were evaluated for heterosis performance for different morphological, yield, yield contributing traits and fibre traits with standard checks i.e. PDKV JKAL 116 and Ajeet 155 in Kharif 2020. Results: Results showed that for seed cotton yield (kg/ha), the cross AKH 09-5 × ICAR-CICR Rajat Bt recorded highest 12.30% standard heterosis over the check PDKV JKAL 116. Significant standard heterosis of 35.83% and 34.36% was observed for no. of bolls per plant over both the checks. While the cross ICAR-CICR 081 Bt × ICAR-CICR Rajat Bt was found to be most heterotic for fibre parameters.   Conclusion: It was found that the Non-Bt × Bt crosses performed better for yield and its contributing trait than Bt × Bt crosses, while Bt × Bt crosses did gave good results for fibre quality parameters. Understanding the genetics behind, can be beneficial for the farming community.