Assessment of variability for drought tolerance in Gossypium hirsutum L. At seedling stage

Response of 49 accessions of cotton (gossypium hirsutum l.) was examined at seedling stage in normal and limited water supply. the experiment was conducted in glasshouse conditions using three moisture levels i.e. normal water supply and two stress conditions. after fifteen days root length,shoot length,root weight,shoot weight,excised leaf water loss and relative water content were measured. analysis of variance indicated significant differences among accessions for all the traits. differences among cotton accessions were assessed using least significant difference test. accession shaheen showed appreciable response for the six traits,whilst ali akbar 802 showed maximum performance for the traits i.e. root length,shoot length,root weight,and shoot weight. ir-3701 performed better for relative water content and excised leaf water loss under normal conditions,whereas,tadla-32 showed better performance for four traits namely,root length,shoot length,root weight,and shoot weight under stress condition. existence of variability in the cotton germplasm suggests that further genetic improvement may be made through selection and breeding. © 2015 university of agriculture. all rights reserved.