Effect of Variety, Irrigation, and Plant Growth Regulator Use on Cotton Performance

Cotton variety selection and management is an extremely important issue to growers across the nation.  A substantial reason for this was the rapid turnover of commercially available cotton varieties due to advancements in transgenic weed and insect traits.  Therefore, a Beltwide project funded through Cotton Incorporated was conducted to evaluate performance of newly released varieties and their response to irrigation and plant growth regulators.  Five varieties were evaluated depending on region (Southwest, Mid-south, and Southeast United States) and each set of varieties were subjected to three plant growth regulator regimes under dryland and irrigated conditions.  Plant growth regulator regimes consisted of untreated cotton along with regionally adapted standard and aggressive treatments.  Data collected from trials in 2012 and 2013 may provide growers with insight on how to easily transition between varieties as they are released and how to manage varieties to maximize their potential.