COMPARATIVE PERFORMANCE OF PIMA AND EGYPTIAN COTTON CULTIVARS: I. COTTON YIELD AND ITS COM- PONENTS, EARLINESS IN MATURITY AND FIBER PROP- ERTIES

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Agronomy Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt

2 Cotton Research Institute, Agricultural Research Center, Giza, Egypt

Abstract

Four Pima genotypes (Earlipima, PS-4, PS-6 and PS-7) and four long staple Egyptian cotton varieties (G.80, G.83, G.85 and G.86) were sampled to conduct a comparison of growth and develop­ment. Significant variation due to genotypes was found for cotton yield and for only two of its components viz. lint percent and seed index in the combined data across environments and in some in­stances for individual environments. Also significant variation was observed for genotype x environment interaction for only cotton yield. Contrasting the Egyptian group vs. Pima in their yielding po­tentials exhibited no significant differences in seed cotton and lint cotton yields and all yield contributing variables studied except lint percentage which exhibited significant differences of about 1 % in favour of the Egyptian group.Contrasting Pima vs. Egyptian group exhibited significant mean squares for combined data across environments for the two maturity indices, i.e. mean maturity date (MMD) and earliness index (El) In favour of Pima cotton with about one day in MMD and 7 % for El. Results of combined analysis in­dicated that, G.86 cultivar is characterized with good fiber prop-