Effect of Water Stress on the Growth and Yield of Cotton Crop (<i>Gossypium hirsutum</i> L.)

Abstract

Cotton is one of the most important fibre crops playing a key role in economic and social affairs of the world. Water is a critical factor which influences on growth and yield of the cotton crop. Scarcity of water has put tremendous pressure on scientists to introduce drought tolerant cotton varieties. This study was aimed to determine water stress effects on the growth and yield of cotton. The present study was carried out to examine the effect of number of irrigations on the growth and yield of cotton during 2014. The field trial was conducted at the Experimental Fields of Agronomy Section, Agriculture Research Institute, Tandojam, Pakistan. A three replicated Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) was employed to layout the experiment having plot size of 2.5 m × 5 m (12.5 m 2). Four cotton varieties i.e. NIAB-78, Shahbaz-95, Sindh-1 and TH-224/87 were chosen for this study based on their frequent farmer usage. All the agronomic practices were performed according to standard procedures. Results showed that all the growth and yield components of cotton were significantly (P < 0.01) affected by varieties and irrigation frequencies with exception of monopodial branches and staple length, which were not significantly (P > 0.05) affected by irrigation frequencies. The cotton crop irrigated six times at 21 days interval showed better results with 138.16 cm plant height, 1.45 monopodial branches per plant, 21.83 sympodial * Corresponding author. A. Sahito et al. 1028 branches per plant, 44.58 bolls per plant, 33.86% G.O.T., and 26.97 mm staple length, 149.84 g seed cotton yield per plant and 2271.16 kg•ha −1 seed cotton yield. This study concluded that variety NIAB-78 showed superiority over Shahbaz-95, Sindh-1 and TH-224/87 in almost all the characters of economic importance, and the cotton crop received 6 irrigations at 21 days interval resulted in significantly economical overall performance as compared with 5 irrigations or 4 irrigations with higher seed cotton yield.

Response of Cotton to Potassium Levels Under Water Regime

“…Muttar [30] and Al-Khirllah [22] obtained same results, that two weekly irrigation interval gave the highest ginning percentage about 21.14%. But Lee et al, [34], Honey [31] and Sahito et al, [35] were found irrigation at 21 days (three weeks) had attained the highest ginning percentage about 33.86%. Associated increasing potassium levels significant increment of ginning percentage in both seasons.…”

Molecular and Physio-Biochemical Characterization of Cotton Species for Assessing Drought Stress Tolerance

“…Cotton is one of the most valuable crops for providing natural fibers for the textile industry globally. China, the United States, India, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Turkey, and Brazil are the seven largest producers of cotton worldwide, while China, the United States, the Franc Zone of Africa, Uzbekistan, Australia, and India are the five leading exporters [ 42 ]. China, the United States, and India provide most of the world’s cotton; more than 15.95 million metric tons of cotton as lint and 29.26 million metric tons of cotton as seeds were exported in 2014 (FAOSTAT, ).…”

“…The productivity of cotton is detrimentally affected by biotic and abiotic stresses, such as fungi, harmful insects, drought, and soil salinity. Among abiotic stresses, drought was found to be the most serious stress that reduced cotton yields significantly at the experimental fields of the Agriculture Research Institute, Tandojam, Pakistan during the year 2007 [ 42 , 43 ].…”

Foliar Applied Salicylic Acid Improves Water Deficit-Tolerance in Egyptian Cotton

“…These decrease might be due to the increase in temperature and a reduced in water availability (Ahmed et al, 2017). Improved irrigation use and appropriate planning is a possible selection norm for increasing yield under drought stress and it assesses the method and depth of water applied, whether it was used at optimum level by a plant (Sahito et al, 2015). The major objective of applying the WD is to raise water use efficiency (WUE) by decrease the amount of water applied or by increase irrigation intervals (Semida et al, 2017).…”