VARIATION ANALYSIS FOR FIBER QUALITY TRAITS AMONG DIFFERENT POSITIONSIN EIGHT UPLAND COTTON CULTIVARS

Equivalencyof fiber quality within a plant of upland cotton, Gossypium hirsutum L., is very important. There are several traits within a plant that can be used to measure fiber quality and five of those traits will be investigated. Eight representative upland cultivars were grown at the Plant Science Research Farm at Mississippi State University in 1986 and five fiber traits: micronaire, fiber elongation, 2.5% and 50% span length, and fiber strength, were measured at different plant locations. The analysis of the study was modeled after a crop stability analysis with plant locations being treated as environments in the analysis. Three methodsof stability analyses were investigated:Francis and Kannenberg’s (F-K), Finlay and Wilkinson’s (F-W), and additive main effect and multiplication interaction (AMMI).The results showed that cultivar ST213 was stable for micronaire, MC235 for fiber span length, DPNSL and DES119 for fiber elongation, and CAMD-E for fiber strength.