Memoirs of the Department of Agriculture in India Studies in Inheritance in Cotton I

ATTEMPTS to increase the value of the cotton plant grown in India or the value of the cotton produced by means of the crossing of different species or different varieties of the cotton plant date almost from the beginning of serious work on cotton improvement in the early years of the present century. [...] The characters studied were (1) the colour of the corolla and the presence of a spot at the base of the petal ; (2) the presence or absence of red colouring matter in the sap ; (3) the leaf factor ; and (4) the type of branching and the length of the growing period previous to flowering. [...] They are on the other hand markedly contrasted as to (1) the colour of the stalk (2) the shape of the leaf (3) the colour of the flower and the length of the petal (4) the presence of nectaries both foliar and extra floral (5) the colour of the lint (6) the ginning percentage of the kapas and (7) the staple of the. [...] The que4ion as to the result of the cross between the two cotton types described in the matter of the shape of the leaf is of very great—though chiefly of theoretical—interest. [...] These figures show that while the range of variation of the leaf-factor in a single plant is practically as great as that of the actual measurements of length and breadth of the middle lobe of the leaf its variability in a large population grown side by side in the same year is much greater (nearly double) than that of the actual measurements.