Effect of Cotton Leaf Mosaic Disease on Morphology, Yield and Fibre Characteristics of Upland Cotton in Pakistan |
Khalid P. Akhtar, M. A. Haq, Wajid Ishaque, M. K. R. Khan, Azeem I. Khan |
|
Abstract |
The effect of cotton leaf mosaic disease on morphology,yield and fibre characteristics was examined for a susceptible cotton candidate variety CRIS-168. Plants inoculated at most susceptible growth stage (six week) under screen house showed severe mosaic symptoms.There was a significant reduction in plant height and yield. Cotton leaf mosaic disease was found to produce severe effects on plant morphology with 24.1% reduction in plant height, 25% in internode length and 37.5% in number of sympodia on main stem. However no changes were observed against number of monopodial branches per plant. Inoculated plants showed 82% decrease in yield/plant, 80% in number of boll set/plant, 12.1% in boll weight, 12.8% in lint weight, 10.8% in seed weight, and 6.8% in seed index. Cotton leaf mosaic disease also showed effects on fibre characteristics with 0.8% decrease in GOT and 1.6% in fibre length. In contrast, uniformity ratio, fibre fineness and maturity index was increased by 20.5%, 14.4% and 0.9%, respectively. |
Key Words:
cotton, Leaf mosaic, fibre characteristics, Pakistan, plant morphology, yield components |
|