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Plant Pubescence, Genetic Background, and Seasonal Effects on Agronomic and Fiber Properties of Upland Cotton¹

Smooth-leaved lines of cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.), although showing resistance to certain insects, have frequently been deficient in some agronomic and fiber properties. In this study, we compared lint yield, yield components, and other agronomic and fiber properties in smoothleaf and hirsute cotton in eight genetic backgrounds in 1981 and 1982, and in two backgrounds in 1983. Plots were grown at Tempe, AZ; soil type was a Contine clay loam (a fine, mixed, hyperthermic Typic Haplargid). The objective of this study was to determine whether certain deficiencies were associated consistently with the smoothleaf phenotype. The 1981 and 1982 results showed that no agronomic or fiber-property deficiencies were associated consistently with smoothleaf. In 1983, however, the smoothleaf line that had been selected for high lint yield in 1981 and 1982 yielded 36% less lint per plant than the hirsute sibling cultivar, and the smoothleaf line that had been selected for low insect damage yielded 30% less lint per plant than the hirsute cultivar. Lower lint yields in both smoothleaf lines mainly were attributable to fewer bolls per plant. These lower yields and interactions of years with level of pubescence reinforced our earlier decision, based mainly on equivocal results from insect*resistance studies, to discontinue smoothleaf lines in our breeding program except for those carrying the delta smooth (more properly, semismooth) allele, t₃

Key Words: Gossypium hirsutum L. • Host-plant resistance • Isolines • Smoothleaf • Semi-smoothleaf • Yield components • Genotype x environment interactions

² Research geneticists, USDA-ARS, Western Cotton Res. Lab., Phoenix, AZ 85040 and Crop Sci. Res. Lab., Mississippi State, MS 39762, respectively.

Received for publication December 24, 1986.