Effect of Cotton Leaf Mosaic Disease on Morphology, Yield and Fibre Characteristics of Upland Cotton in Pakistan

Abstract

The effect of cotton leaf mosaic disease on morphology, yield and fibre characteristics was examined for a susceptible cotton candidate variety CRIS-168. Plants inoculated at most susceptible growth stage (six week) under screen house showed severe mosaic symptoms. There was a significant reduction in plant height and yield. Cotton leaf mosaic disease was found to produce severe effects on plant morphology with 24.1% reduction in plant height, 25% in internode length and 37.5% in number of sympodia on main stem. However no changes were observed against number of monopodial branches per plant. Inoculated plants showed 82% decrease in yield/plant, 80% in number of boll set/ plant, 12.1% in boll weight, 12.8% in lint weight, 10.8% in seed weight, and 6.8% in seed index. Cotton leaf mosaic disease also showed effects on fibre characteristics with 0.8% decrease in GOT and 1.6% in fibre length. In contrast, uniformity ratio, fibre fineness and maturity index was increased by 20.5%, 14.4% and 0.9%, respectively.