Inheritance Pattern and Association of Qualitative and Quantitative Traits in Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) for Sustainable Breeding Goal

Background: Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) is the most important fiber crop of the world and commonly known as white gold. It plays an important role in the economy of Pakistan. It provides raw material to the local textile industry and generates considerable amount of foreign exchange. The yield of cotton is lower in Pakistan. Knowledge of association among different traits is important for the development of cultivars with better yield and quality characters.

Materials and Methods: In this research, two parents (PB-38 and Jambo Okra) and their crosses sown in randomized complete block design with three replications to sort out best performing genotypes for these profitable traits (plant height, number of sympodial branches, number of monopodial branches, leaf type, boll size, boll shape, number of bolls per plant, boll weight, ginning out turn, 100 seed weight and seed cotton yield).

Results: Analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that parental and their F2 population showed significant differences for all the observed traits. Correlation and inheritance pattern of all characters provides information of association among all traits and percentage of inheritable attributes.

Conclusions: The association and inheritance pattern study provide us useful information for effective selection and sustainable breeding programs. Heritability estimations revealed that heritability of traits fluctuate as following order; monopodial branches> ginning outturn>boll weight>sympodial branches>plant height>yield>number of bolls plant-1 with heritable percentages 99%, 90%, 89%, 64%, 60%, 60% and 55% respectively.