MONITORING PLANT GROWTH AND YIELD PRODUCTION IN SOME EGYPTIAN COTTON CULTIVARS USING PLANT MAP DATA

Management of cotton crop production environments requires the quantification of the effects of the environment on plant growth and yield. Plant mapping is a powerful technique for analyzing the fruiting patterns and for estimating potential yield of cotton crop. This paper presents a crop monitoring system based on plant map data to assist in the management of inputs for cotton production, using four Egyptian cotton cuttivars (G. 75, G. 77, G. 80 and G. 83) besides different treat­ments on Giza 80 cultivar during 1996, 1997 and 1998 growing sea­sons. Results obtained revealed that all the cultivars under study had the same behavior during different stages of plant growth, and they reached the cutout time approximately at the same stage of growth. Pix and hill spacing treatments on G. 80 cultivar plants revealed a trend to change the behavior of plants (as mapped), in different stages of growth. Applying Pix at the optimum time and of the optimum dose (250 ml ⁱ / fed at squaring + 250 m1¹ / fed at beginning of flowering) or using 30 cm between hills, had a good effect on the vigour of plants. Results also, cleared (by using plant map data) that the lower and middle zones of plant had the highest values of yield per plant with pref­erence to the first and second fruiting positions.