A BRIEF NOTE ON EGYPTIAN COTTON IN USSR AND RUSSIAN VARIETIES OF G. BARBADENSE

The history of the Egyptian Cotton in the USSR, goes back 50 years ago, when some Egyptian varieties were cultivated, in 1926, in Turkemenia, at Central Station Byram Ali, Such as "Marrad", "Ashmouni", Zagora, Joanovitch, Assili, Sakellaridis, and Pima. The breeders in this station selected some individual plants from those varie­ties to improve some traits in the Egyptian varieties, especially earliness and yield. This work was continued up till 1930. In that period, they selected some lines as line No 78 from Joanovitch, which was earlier than the variety by 7-8 days, also the line No 175 from Ashmouni was earlier by 5 days and longer in lint length by 3 mm. Since then, the same work had been started in other stations such as Tarjek­stam, sykhandrian and Andijan, where a department for Egyptian cotton has been re­cently established. In this period, the breeding program in the USSR depended on the individual plant selection method. According to this method, the breeders produced variety (2 and 3) from Joanovitch (1933), variety 23 from Pima (1933) and a seri­al number from 35-9. Were selected from line (0670), which had been selected from Ashmouni (Kanasha, 1948). On the other hand, the Central Station in Byram Ali, used the artificial hybridi­zation between Egyptian and Peru's cotton (South Ameria), since 1931 till 1940. Due to this method, the breeders were able to produce varieties, having morphological characters of Egyptian cotton with good fiber quality such as, varieties 1320, 1321, 1374 and others. In the experimental station Tarjekestan, they produced the varie­ties 424-v, 124-v, 1924-v and other varieties. Meanwhile, the Egyptian cotton has been cultivated since 1939 in Uzbekstan and central Asia, such as Pima, Maarad, Sake!, Ashmouni and the other new Russian varieties 23 and 35-1, which were se­lected from the Egyptian cotton.