Association and principal component analysis of yield and its components in cultivated cotton

Abstract

Yield is a complex quantitative character that is controlled by many small genes. For effective and simultaneous selection to improve upon yield of cotton, interaction and contribution of each of the trait parameters has to be understood. The study to understand the relationship of yield components was conducted on sixty hybrids obtained from a cross of ten G. hirsutum and six G. barbadense in a Line x Tester fashion. The study revealed that most of the components were positively correlated amongst each other both genotypically and phenotypically. Number of bolls per plant, Number of sympodial branches per plant and boll weight had positive and high significant correlations with seed cotton yield per plant. In all cases phenotypic coefficient was greater than genotypic coefficient suggesting environmental interference. Partitioning the association into direct and indirect effects indicated that seed index had the highest direct effect on seed cotton yield. For indirect selection, seed index, number of monopodia, number of seeds/boll will be more reliable and 2.5% span length, bundle strength, elongation percent and micronaire also are more reliable for indirect selection for fibre quality in cotton. Six Principal components showed Eigen value of more than one with an accumulated variability of 70.39%. The Principal component with the highest variability was mostly related to seed cotton yield, uniformity ratio, boll weight, number of sympodia, number of bolls/plant and plant height.

Keywords

• path analysis
• cotton
• principal component
• hybrid
• correlation
• yield