Electronic Journal of Plant Breeding

In the present study, forty American cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) genotypes of diverse origin were evaluated to observe the genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance for yield and fibre quality traits. The analysis of variance study indicated the presence of significant difference among all the traits. The highest PCV and GCV were observed for the number of monopodia per plant, followed by seed cotton yield per plant. Genotypic coefficients of variation had a similar trend as the phenotypic coefficient of variation indicating a less environmental effect on the expression of the traits. High heritability along with high genetic advance was observed in seed cotton yield per plant. The high heritability was recorded for the traits viz., days to 50% flowering, the number of monopodia per plant, the number of sympodia per plant, boll weight, seed index, ginning outturn, 2.5% span length, bundle strength and seed cotton yield per plant. The high genetic advance was also observed for seed cotton yield per plant indicating the use of simple selection for the improvement of this character in the future breeding programmes.