The Effects of Cotton Fruiting Habits on Yield and Quality In Georgia

Georgia has a long, warm growing season with periodic heavy rainfall and dry conditions.  When DP555 came on the market, its versatility under both favorable and unfavorable seasonal conditions made it a dominant cultivar in Georgia production.  With the end of the DP555 era, several new cultivars have shown the capability to produce high yields and high quality cotton.  However, these cultivars have different fruiting habits than DP555.  We compared fruiting habits, and the resultant yield and quality obtained from 10 commercial cultivars over three years in irrigated and non-irrigated environments.  There was a strong interaction in some cases between irrigation level and yield, as well as other in-season growth parameters.