Abstract

The cotton plant has the most complex structure among major field crops, and its yield may be affected by multidirectional interactions of different components. Study of the true relationship between cotton seed yield and related traits will help to reveal their importance in cotton breeding and production. This study was carried out to elucidate the relationships of some agronomic traits on cotton seed yield. The experiments were carried out at three different locations each having two subpopulations in total 558 F_2:3 families of a cotton hybrid LMY15. Results revealed that cotton seed yield exhibited positive and significant correlations with boll number, boll weight and number of sympodial branches. Path analysis illustrated that the boll number had the highest positive direct effect on cotton seed yield followed by boll weight, which was also resulted similarly from regression analysis. Therefore, boll number and boll weight can be used as selection criteria to enhance the cotton seed yield in the breeding programs.

Key words: Gossypium hirsutum L., morphological traits, seed yield, path analysis, boll number, boll weight.