Heritability and correlation analysis of morphological and yield traits in genetically modified cotton

Abstract Background: Cotton is known for fiber extraction and it is grown in tropical and sub-tropical areas of the world due to having hot weather. Cotton crop has a significant role in GDP of Pakistan. Therefore, the two-years research was conducted to estimate heritability and association among various yield contributing parameters of cotton, i.e., plant height, number of bolls per plant, number of sympodial branches per plant, seed cotton yield, boll weight, seed index, ginning outturn (GOT), fiber length, fiber strength, and fiber fineness. Results: Association analysis revealed that seed cotton yield had significant positive correlation with plant height, number of bolls per plant, number of sympodial branches per plant, ginning outturn (GOT), staple length and fiber strength. Staple length and fiber strength were negatively linked with each other. Estimates of heritability were high for all of the traits except number of sympodial branches per plant and boll weight.Conclusion: The parent IUB-222 was found to be the best for plant height, number of bolls per plant, boll weight, ginning outturn (GOT), seed cotton yield and seed index. The genotypes namely NIAB-414 and VH-367 were identified as the best parents for fiber length, strength and fineness. Among the crosses NIAB-414 × IUB-222 was the best for number of bolls per plant, seed index, seed cotton yield and fiber fineness, whereas, cross of NIAB-414 × CIM-632 was good for plant height. The combination of A555 × CIM-632 was the best for number of sympodial branches per plant, boll weight, fiber length and strength, and VH-367 × CIM-632 proved the best for ginning outturn (GOT).