Effects of Cottons Differing in Pubescence and Other Characters on Pink Bollworms in Arizona123

Abstract

Strains of cotton, Gossypium hirsutum L., that ranged from glabrous to densely pubescent, and also differed in other characteristics, were evaluated in field cages and in the field for relative damage caused by Pectinophora gossypiella (Saunders). Damage was lower in TM-1 (H2), a densly pubescent strain carrying the pilose allele H2, than in most other strains tested, but levels of pubescence below that of TM-1 (H2) did not insure resistance. A glabrous strain in ‘Stoneville 7A’ background, carrying the Sm2 allele, had less pink bollworm damage than its normally pubescent counterpart. Two other strains that had no more damage than TM-1 (H2) in 1975 were 1 × 6–56 and AET-5 × (108 × Br-2)-7-69, The former was significantly earlier than the other strains tested and thus probably escaped some damage. The latter, however, is a promising strain because it had a significantly lower amount of damage than the controls ‘Deltapine 16’ and Stoneville 7A but was only moderately pubescent and slightly earlier and seemed to possess the high yielding capacity of the cultivars.