ROLE OF PHOTOSYNTHETIC STABILITY AND PHYSIO-CHEMICAL ATTRIBUTES IN THE SELECTION OF IMPROVED COTTON GENOTYPES IN ACTUAL FIELD CONDITIONS

The current experimental study was conducted at Cotton Research Station, Bahawalpur during the cotton growing in 2022. The study was designed to evaluate the elite cotton genotypes based on their photosynthetic sustainability and other physiochemical attributes which could help in framing a selection criterion for the development of improved carton genotypes. The results revealed that highly significant variations were present among the elite cotton genotypes for studied morpho-physiological, photosynthetic and biochemical traits i.e., CLCV incidence percentage, number of bolls, sympodia per plant, boll weight, net photosynthetic rate, total chlorophyll contents, transpiration rate, stomatal conductance, sugar contents, total phenolic contents, ascorbic acid and seed cotton yield, which could be used in devising selection criteria for this election of parental material to be used in the hybridization program. Furthermore, the correlation coefficient analysis unveiled the strong correlation of seed cotton yield with transpiration rate, sugar contents, stomatal conductance, net photosynthetic rate, ginning out turn and sympodia per plant whereas a strong negative correlation was found for total phenolic contents. These results were also verified through the mean bar graphs and biplot graphs which show that these traits have the highest influence on seed cotton yield under the optimal condition.