Prioritising D ‐Value in Multivariate Evaluation Identifies High‐Yield and Drought‐Resistant Cotton Genotypes

ABSTRACT In order to screen out agronomic traits closely related to drought resistance of cotton, seven agronomic traits were measured, including morphological traits: plant height (PH), first vegetative shoot length of single plant (FVSL) and all vegetative shoot length of single plant (AVSL), and yield traits: boll number (BN), single boll weight (SBW), lint percentage (LP) and seed cotton yield (SCY). All agronomic traits were significantly affected by drought stress, and the morphological traits were significantly correlated, while the yield traits were opposite. Among them, the plant height and seed cotton yield were closely related to drought resistance of cotton. Comprehensive drought resistance coefficient (CDC), comprehensive drought resistance comprehensive evaluation value ( D ) and weighted drought resistance coefficient (WDC) value are the three comprehensive evaluation indexes of drought resistance. This study is the first to systematically validate that the D value is more scientific to reflect the differences between various agronomic traits and drought resistance of cotton than the CDC value and WDC value. Among the 199 cotton genotypes, there were large differences in drought resistance, and by using cluster analysis, they were divided into five groups: high drought resistance, drought resistance, medium drought resistance, drought‐sensitive and high drought sensitivity groups. Four cotton genotypes with high drought resistance were selected; UC072 and UC002 can be widely used as drought resistant genotypes with high yield.