PRODUCTIVITY AND FIBER QUALITY OF CONVENTIONAL COTTON VARIETIES AT THE COMARCA LAGUNERA, MEXICO

Abstract

Due to its high fiber quality, earliness and smaller vegetative size, Mexican cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) is the most cultivated worldwide, providing almost 90 % of world production. Mexico ranked thirteenth among the main cotton-producing countries, of which India, China, the United States of America, Brazil and Pakistan account for 77 % of world production. In Mexico, transgenic cotton has been planted for more than 20 years because of its tolerance to the attack of the cotton larvae complex and its resistance to herbicides such as glyphosate, ammonium glufosinate and dicamba; however, some farmers consider that transgenic cotton is not profitable and would
be willing to plant conventional varieties if they were available in the market. Therefore, in this study, the conventional Cian Precoz, Cian 95, Juárez 91, Laguna 89 and Nazas cotton varieties were evaluated, along with the Delta Pine commercial control, in relation to their productive performance. The production system was in rows 0.76 m apart, and nine plants per linear m, to have a population of 115,000 plants ha^-1. Traits such as seed and lint yield, earliness to first harvest, yield components and fiber quality were measured. Significant differences (P ≤ 0.05) were detected between varieties for all the traits due to the wide genetic variation. Delta Pine produced the highest yield (3906.1 kg ha^-1); it was also superior to the rest of varieties in lint, seed and lint plus seed weight. Regarding the fiber quality requirements for the textile industry, all the materials evaluated meet the minimum requirements in length, breaking strength and micronaire index.