Cotton Plant Damage Recovery Comparison Between Different Variety Types in a Short Growing Season

In the last fifteen years great strides have been made in developing new cotton varieties. Varieties have been developed to produce greater yield, higher quality and increased stress resistance. As traditional early maturing stripper type varieties have declined and mid maturing picker type varieties have increased on the high plains of Texas, the question of recovery from severe weather events (i.e. hail damage) has risen. This trial was planted for the 2010 and 2011 growing season on the Texas Tech research farm in Lubbock, TX under drip irrigation. Fifteen different combinations of fruiting branch and leaf removal were conducted manually at three different growth stages; first bloom, one inch boll, and first open boll. Deltapine DP104 B2RF represents the early maturing stripper phenotype, while FM 9160 B2F represents the mid maturing picker phenotype. Varieties and treatments were planted in a CRD set up as a 2 variety x 3 leaf removal x 5 branch removal factorial in 4- row, 10 ft. plots with treatments applied to the two middle rows. Data include node of first fruiting branch at time of treatment, total nodes at treatment and total nodes at harvest, plant height, storm tolerance, agronomic properties, yield, and fiber quality.