Assessment of Breeding Potential of Gossypium Hirsutum for Fiber Quality by using Multivariate Analyses

Muhammad Mubashir Asim1*, Bilal Ayub2, Saba Basharat2, Rabia Khalid2 and Fiza Khushnood Raza2

1Department of Botany, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan 2Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan

Abstract

Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) is a valuable crop due to its high-quality fiber, which is widely used in the textile industry. Cotton is also called “the white gold” and the “king of fiber,” ranking first among all the available natural fibers in the world. In this research, 26 different cotton genotypes were planted in the field to study different quality parameters fiber strength, fiber elongation, fiber fineness, uniformity index, maturity index, fiber length, spinning consistency index and various morphological parameters including plant height, number of sympodial and monopodial branches, number of bolls per plant, number nodes per plant, number of seeds per boll, seed weight and the first fruiting node. A randomized complete block design (RCBD) was used in conducting a field experiment using three replications/blocks. Analysis of variance was also applied to the recorded data for statistical analysis and to check the significant differences among the genotypes. A mean graph was used to check the highest genotype of cotton and this graph showed that MNH-888 was best for plant height and the number of nodes per plant, MG-6 best for the number of monopodial branches and fiber lengths, S-3 best for the number of sympodial branches and the number of bolls per plant, NS-121 best for 1st fruiting node, CRS-2007 best for seed weight, CIM-602 best for number of seeds per boll and fiber elongation, NS-131 best for fiber fineness and maturity index, VH-329 best for fiber strength, KZ-189 best for fiber uniformity index and spinning consistency index. The cluster analysis and principal component analysis were used to explore the characteristics of cotton fib to find out which cotton genotype is better for fiber quality. It is concluded from the research that according to the principal component analysis for the fiber quality traits a genotype KZ-189 was the best for fiber quality whereases genotypes like CRS-2007, MNH-888 and CIM-602 were also better for most of the fiber characteristics but FH-114 is a better genotype for yielding traits and according to the cluster analysis, the genotype KZ-18 is the only one genotype belongs to cluster 7 is the best genotypes for most of the fiber and morphological traits.