evaluation of earliness and yield-related traits in advanced cotton cultivars (gossypium hirsutum l.)

Cotton is an important fiber crop and used to produce fibers and oil. evaluating morphologic traits of cotton is very important and can be used for the selection of better cultivars. this study was conducted in the moghan agricultural research station affiliated with the ardabil agricultural and natural resources research and training center, iran. in this study, 35 cultivars of cotton were evaluated for fiber-and yield-related traits during two consecutive years. we found that fiber quality and seed cotton traits were significantly affected by plots and cultivars over two years. among the cultivars, the highest number of the bolls, boll weight, first picking yield, total yield, fiber strength, fiber traction, and fiber percentage were 24.5 g, 6.30 g, 3454 kg/ha, 5431 kg/ha, 34.5 g/tex, 7.30%, and 45.80% observed in cultivar shayan, while the second picking yield, earliness percentage, and fiber fineness were 2323.3 kg/ha, 73.5%, and 4.55 μg/in obtained in cultivars varamin, avangard, and armaghan, respectively. based on the ward’s cluster analysis, the cotton cultivars were grouped into three different clusters. the cultivars in cluster 3 including nazilli, no.228, no.200, b557, armaghan, golestan, and shayan are superior in terms of their number of the boll, boll weight, earliness percentage, fiber percentage, fiber length, fiber fineness, fiber strength, fiber traction, and yield performance.