Sadia Farooq*1, Hadia Bilal1, Zonera Arshad1, Muhammad Ans Hussain1 and Kashif Ali1
1Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan
*Corresponding author: sadiaf029@gmail.com
Cotton is an essential fiber crop across the world that has a vital role in the GDP of Pakistan as a source of fiber, vegetable oil, and livestock feed. Cotton crop is adversely affected by climate change due to which a significant decrease in yield has been observed over the last few years. The production of improved cotton cultivars is essential as the demand for crop yield and quality of fiber has increased with the increase in population. Combining ability helps to select parents with specific traits that interact favorably in hybrids, ensuring more controlled and targeted improvement. The primary goal of the present investigation is to assess the combining ability for yield and associated character of 8 parents (3 lines and 5 testers) and 15 crosses developed by the line × tester analysis. Significant variations in yield and fiber properties were found by analysis of variance, indicating considerable genetic variability among parents. The GCA and SCA were computed for the yield and its related characters. All the studied traits were primarily governed by non-additive types of gene action. The parents viz., S-9, Bahar-2017, MSDK, and AA-933 were identified as good general combiners. The hybrids, Bahar-2017 × AA-933, FH-172 × AA-933, MSDK × FH-154 and MNH-992 × NIAB-777 were identified as best hybrids. The parents and their hybrids having high values of GCA and SCA respectively will provide a route for research programs to increase cotton yield.