Evaluation of Short Season Cotton Genotypes on the High Plain of Texas

Evaluation of Short Season Cotton genotypes on the High Plain of Texas The world demand for land, water and food has been increasing since the biofuel start to have importance in the main economy the grain prices as sorghum and corn has been increasing and the cotton yield has been affected once that sorghum need less water than the regular cotton it starts to be replacing the cotton land, for having a safer crop the cotton has some challenges to win, there is a demand for a cotton with good fiber quality, short season that can grow under limited precipitation. All these challenges are correlated if we have a short season crop, this crop will use less water, will be less susceptible to insects attack, once it’s going to stay less time on the field and it’s going to be ready to harvest before the cold temperatures with possible freezing what is going to make a better fiber quality, looking for these challenges Texas Tech University has a breeding program to solve this challenges making the Texans producer able to produce a competitive cotton for the international market. Freezing temperatures in late spring and early fall in these northern counties require that cotton be planted in late May and mature before mid-October. Developing genotypes that combine early maturity with high lint yield and improved fiber quality will be critical for successful cotton production in these areas. Chemical mutagenesis was used to produce 18 mutant lines, that were submitted to breeding process including some crosses were evaluated in Lubbock Texas for earliness and PM183, FM958, DPL444 and Nexgen 2448R were used as check, the check that mature faster was the PM183 that on October 29th presented an average of 7.5 bow open, the DPL444 has the average of 6 bows opened and the Nexgen 2448R 6.5 opened , 8 of the evaluated materials were faster then PM183 and the one originated by the cross between Sphinx4-2 X FM958-3 was the fastest with the average of 10.1 bows opened in the same date. All the tested material has similar lint yield and fiber quality than the main material present in the market .