Choosing the Best Cotton Variety for Your Situation

Choosing the best cotton variety for a given situation can be highly beneficial to a cotton producer, but identifying that variety can be a difficult task.  Since there is no one perfect variety, a producer must establish specific priorities for each situation and identify the variety that best meets those priorities.  Prior to the advent of transgenic cottons, variety selection was primarily based on expected yield in a particular situation.  Today, producers first determine which transgenes are desired.  Even if other varieties may produce higher yields, producers may limit their choices to specific transgenic varieties to facilitate insect and weed control.  Desired transgenes primarily depends upon expected pest species and densities (primarily weeds today) and technologies used in adjacent field (drift issues).  Once transgenic technology is chosen, producers should obviously chose varieties that are likely to produce stable, high yields of high quality cotton.   Results from state variety tests and local strip tests/demonstrations are used to determine which specific variety to plant.  Parameters from these tests usually include lint yield and fiber quality, but may also include parameters related to maturity, yield components, and host plant resistance.  Presently available transgenic technologies and variety trial parameters associated with yield, fiber quality, and host plant resistance will be discussed.