Classical and Advanced Breeding study in Cotton

Cotton is one of the most important commercial crops of India cultivated mainly for its fiber and other by products. Cotton through cloth has influenced the culture and civilizations. In the process of forming clothes and garments it provides livelihood and employment to workers engaged in cloth makingdesigners traders and the like. Cotton is one of the few crops which are accessible to development of genotypes as varieties and at the same time amenable for commercial exploitation of heterosis. Development of several hybrids during the last decade has contributed to a quantum jump in cotton productivity. Though cotton production in the country has registered marked improvement in recent years the yield levels of hybrids appear to have reached stagnation. The important reasons attributed for this is the lack of systematic efforts made to develop hybrid oriented populations derived lines with improved combining ability and develop new hybrids based on such genetically diverse high combiner lines.