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Harsimran Kaur Kapoor, Bishwoyog Bhattarai and Haydee E. Laza
Department of Plant and Soil Science, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX
Abstract
Temperature is a key environmental factor that influences plant growth and development. Both, upland and pima cotton cultivars are sensitive to temperature below and above the optimum during early season, which may negatively affect crop yield. The effects of high and low temperature stress at different developmental stages have been extensively studied in cotton. However, the physiological mechanisms underlying the seedling responses to temperature fluctuations ranging from suboptimal to optimum and high temperatures still remain unclear. The main objective of this study was to assess the effect of early season temperature fluctuations ranging from temperatures below and above the optimum on the morpho-physiological responses of important cotton cultivars grown across Texas and the United States. The experiment was conducted under controlled conditions. A detailed comparative analysis highlighting the most and least affected seedling traits will be presented.