The present research was designed to study the association of different agronomic and fiber quality traits through correlation analysis and the relative importance of each traits on lint yield. The experimental design used was Randomized Complete Block Design with three replications. The result indicated that significant and positive association among four agronomic traits (boll number per plant, seed cotton yield, ginning out-turn and lint yield) and micronaire. Similarly, highly significant association among fiber quality traits (fiber length, fiber length uniformity index, short fiber index and fiber strength) were observed in desirable direction. However, the phenotypic correlation (rp) and genotypic correlation (rg) values showed non-significant and low association for most of agronomic and fiber quality traits. Lint yield showed highly significant and positive genotypic correlation and phenotypic correlation with seed cotton yield (rg = 0.954 and rp = 0.948) and ginning out-turn (rg = 0.874 and rp = 0.807). Comparatively, the magnitude of phenotypic correlation coefficient between lint yield and lint yield contributing traits were slightly lower than that of the corresponding genotypic correlation coefficient, indicating that the observed association largely due to genetic factors than environmental influence. The correlation path analysis revealed that seed cotton yield and ginning out-turn had high (0.685 and 0.427) positive direct effect on lint yield. Furthermore, the highest of 46.92% lint yield was contributed by seed cotton yield. In conclusion, this study revealed that simultaneous selection for seed cotton yield and ginning out-turn with balanced fiber quality traits probably improve lint yield.

Keywords: Character association, correlation, cotton, lint yield, path analysis.