Inheritance of fiber quality and lint yield in a chemically mutated population of cotton
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abstract
The narrow germplasm base of the upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.), grown on the Texas high plains historically, has limited improvement of fiber quality. Chemical mutagenesis and subsequent selection have helped the development of lines with improved fiber quality in cultivars adapted to this region. This study was conducted to determine the inheritance of improvements in fiber quality. M3 lines with divergent fiber properties of micronaire, length, and strength were selected from a population of Paymaster HS 200 treated with 3% v/v ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) for two hours. The 115 selected lines of M4 and M5 generation were evaluated for fiber quality and lint yield. Regression of the M4 and M5 on the M3 generation, as well as the M5 on the M 4 was used to generate narrow sense heritability coefficients. Significant variations were observed between the mutant lines in all generations except for lint yield in the M5 (1997). The highest heritability estimates were found in fiber length (h2 = 0.29** to 0.46**). Micronaire and strength showed intermediate heritability estimates of h2 = 0.14 to 0.19, while lint yield had a very low heritability estimate of h2 = 0.03. Fiber length and strength were correlated (r = 0.58** to 0.46**) in all the three generations. The mutants identified in these studies have the potential to improve fiber quality of upland cotton without introducing alien genes that may reduce adaptation to short growing season production regions.
