Molecular diversity and combining ability studies in upland cotton

The current study constituted forty six Gossypium hirsutum L. genotypes viz., 36 hybrids resulting from their nine parents and one check hybrid HHH 223. The crossing programme was done during kharif 2016 in half diallel mating design. All these genotypes viz., 9 parents, 36 hybrids, one check hybrid HHH 223 were grown in randomized block design during kharif 2017 at Cotton Research Area, CCS Haryana Agricultual University, Hisar. Data was recorded for following characters namely, days to first flower, plant height (cm), numer of monopods, number of sympods, number of bolls, boll weight(g), seed cotton yield per plant (g), ginning out turn (%), seed index, lint index, fibre length (mm), upper half mean length (mm), fibre strength (g/tex) and micronaire value (¿g/inch). The analysis of variance revealed significant results for all the characters under study except seed index. The parents H 1353 and H 1098i on the basis of gca estimates were the best general combiners for seed cotton yield whereas, H 1476 H and H 1465 for fibre quality.