Abstract
Cotton is an important agro-industrial crop across the globe. Improving the fiber quality and yield potential of cotton are major commercial targets for cotton breeders. The cotton lint yield is computed by multiplying three fundamental yield constituents: average boll weight, boll number per unit ground area, and lint percentage. The cotton species Gossypium arboreum exhibits a wide range of desirable traits, which are absent in the congener Gossypium hirsutum. Four parental lines of G. hirsutum and G. arboreum, with significant differences in boll-related traits, were used to develop the following four F2 populations: Mei Zhongmian × Chimu Heizi (MC), Mei Zhongmian × L-02292-3 (ML), Dixie king × Suyuan 04-44 (DS), and Dixie king × Pamuk (DP), in order to study complex traits, such as boll weight (BW) (g), lint percentage (LP) (%), boll upper width (BUW), boll medium width (BMW), boll lower width (BLU), and boll length (BL) (mm). In segregation populations, extensive phenotypic differences and transgressive segregation were observed. The results show that most of the correlation clusters were negatively associated with boll weight and lint percentage. The positive correlation clusters were observed among boll upper width (BUW), boll medium width (BMW), boll lower width (BLW), and boll length (BL). Seven of the twenty-four extracted principal components had eigenvalues > 1. This accounted for 62.2% of the difference between the four F2 populations. Principal component 1 accounted for 15.1% of the overall variability. The variation in principal component 1 was mainly attributed to boll lower width (BLW), boll medium width (BMW), boll upper width (BUW), boll length (BL), and boll weight (BW) of the ML population. The heritability estimates varied between high, medium, and low for various traits among the studied F2 populations. Interestingly, all traits demonstrated low genetic advance, which indicates that non-additive genes controlled these characters and that direct selection for these traits is not beneficial. The outcome of the present investigation will help to develop cotton cultivars with improved boll weight and lint percentage.
Highlights
Cotton is a globally valuable, synthetic cash crop known for its natural fibers [1]
Four agronomic boll morphological traits and two economic yield-related traits, of four cotton species, including two parents of G. hirsutum and two parents of G. arboreum, the sexes of which were based on boll weight; other associated traits were used for the evaluation of F2 generations developed through intraspecific hybridization
I.e., two crosses for G. arboretum (ID-MC and Mei Zhongmian × L-022923 (ML)) and two for G. hirsutum (DS and Dixie king × Pamuk (DP))
Summary
Cotton is a globally valuable, synthetic cash crop known for its natural fibers [1]. Gossypium is a genus with seven tetraploid (2n = 4x = 52) and forty-five diploid (2n = 2x = 26) species, such as G. herbaceum L. Upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) is a commonly cultivated cotton species, accounting for 95% of worldwide cotton production owing to its high yielding capacity [5,6]. The economic and environmental adaptability of G. hirsutum has been influenced by artificial breeding and long-term natural selection, and its production continues to increase globally across a wide range of latitudes [7]. Gossypium arboretum L. was introduced from India and later domesticated and cultivated in China for nearly 2000 years. The species G. arboreum exhibits a wide range of desirable traits for cotton cultivation, which are absent in upland cotton. The Cotton Germplasm Center at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science has collected and conserved over 300 G. arboreum accessions [10]
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