HETEROSIS IN INTERSPECIFIC COTTON HYBRIDS

Both F1 and F2 hybrids of cotton manifested considerable amount of heterosis against the parents. The F2 hybrids which produce more quantity of seed as compared to F1 may be considered for hybrid cotton production. The average heterosis of F2s over the parents recorded was 16.44% in yield, 9.68% in bolls/plant, 16.21% in seed index, 1.34% in lint and 3.45% in staple length. In all the crosses, observed inbreeding depression was greater than what was expected based on coefficient of inbreeding. The discrepancy between the observed and expected depression could be due to factors like linkage disequilibrium, epistasis and ploidy level.