Phenotyping Drought Tolerance in Converted Gossypium Ssp. Race Stocks

A group of converted race stocks was phenotyped using high throughput techniques for traits that confer drought tolerance in order to characterize the variation among them and to determine the most advantageous growth stage for evaluating drought tolerance in terms of lint yield and fiber quality. Additionally, two high yielding strains were hybridized with four converted race stocks in a factorial mating design. NDVI, leaf surface temperature, stomatal conductance, and absolute chlorophyll content measurements were collected during the developmental stages of squaring, flowering, and boll development. Spearman’s correlations were constructed and analyzed for each growth stage while additive and dominance variation was calculated within the factorial mating design.