COMBINING ABILITY AND HYBRID VIGOR IN INTERSPECIFIC (Gossypium hirsutum L. x Gossypium barbadense L.) LINE X TESTER HYBRIDS OF COTTON

Cotton is most important fiber plant having different fiber properties in the world. This study was carried out to increase yield and ginning outturn of seven interspecific (G hirsutum L. x G barbadense L.) pure (F-9) lines of cotton. For this, lines were hybridized with Stoneville 468 and Claudia cultivars which belonging to G hirsutum L. genus, in 2018, by Line x Tester mating design. Then, 14 F-1 Hybrids were sown with 9 parents according to Randomized Complate Block Design with three replications, in 2019, in Kahramanmaras. In the results of study, BGKM-3 x Stoneville 468 and BGKM-5 x Claudia F-1 hybrids had been found very significant for yield and acceptable ginning outturn with good fiber properties. Morever, while BGKM-3 x Stoneville 468 hybrid showed positive for specific combination ability (SCA) in seed cotton yield and ginning outturn, BGKM-3 line showed very important for general combination ability (GCA) in terms of yield and fiber length. Also, Stoneville 468 tester showed important GCA both fiber fineness and ginning outturn. Inheritance for seed cotton yield have been found higher than other traits and determined both environmental and dominant genes are effective on the seed cotton yield. Besides, contribution of lines on total variance were found higher than both testers and lines x testers interaction, excluding fiber fineness.