Electronic Journal of Plant Breeding (Sep 2023)

Genetic analysis of excised leaf water loss and relative water content and its association with drought tolerance in TNAU cotton cultures

  • R. Soumya1 , M. Rajavel* , D. Vijayalakshmi1 , M.K. Kalarani1 , A. Subramanian2 , K. Thirukumaran3 , K. Sakthivel4 , A. Vinitha1 and S. Gowsiga1

DOI
https://doi.org/10.37992/2023.1403.110
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 14, no. 3
pp. 984 – 990

Abstract

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Drought has a significant negative impact on cotton cultivation and production. Drought tolerance indices [Excised leaf water potential (ELWL), Relative water content (RWC), osmotic potential, water potential] were used to evaluate drought response in three TNAU pre release cultures viz., TVH002, TVH003, TVH007 and a check variety KC3. The experiment had three treatments, T1: Control [100% of pot capacity (PC)], T2: Drought at square formation (Pots @ 45% of PC for 14 days), T3: Drought at flowering stage (Pots @ 45% of PC for 14 days). The study showed flowering stage in cotton was more susceptible to drought than squaring and among the genotypes, TVH002 was tolerant to drought. Genetic analysis revealed that ELWL and RWC had higher genotypic coefficients of variation, phenotypic coefficients of variance coupled with strong heritability. Thus, these can be used as drought indices to screen genotype for drought.

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