Evaluation of An Introgressed Cotton Population for Neps and Seed Coats in Ginned Fibers.

Evaluation of An Introgressed Cotton Population for Neps and Seed Coats in ginned fibers

Linghe Zeng and William R. Meredith, Jr.

Neps and seed coats are two types of impurities in ginned fibers causing severe problems in textile processing during spinning and dyeing. This study was designed to investigate genotypic variation for neps and seed coats in an introgressed germplasm, i.e., JohnCotton (JC), derived from multiple crosses between Gossypium hirsutum and G. barbadense. Two hundred lines of this germplasm and five cultivars were planted at two locations in 2006 and one location in 2007. Neps and seed coats were measured using the Advanced Fiber Information System (AFIS) as nep count and seed coat nep (SCN) count. Genotypic variations of nep count and SCN count in the germplasm were highly significant. High and moderate heritability were identified for nep count and SCN count, respectively. Wide ranges of nep count and SCN count were identified among the 200 lines. The mean SCN count of the population was not significantly different from the mean of the cultivars. The results provide evidence that JC germplasm is a useful genetic resource for genetic improvement of fiber nep content and seed coat content in cotton cultivars.