Cotton Improvement for Natural Colour Fibre: Green Lint

Parinya sebunruang

E-mail: psebunruang@yahoo.com

…………………………………

 

Cotton improvement for natural-colour fibre is not only adding value to fibre product but also environmental friendly in reducing nature pollution from dye process.  Thus in 2000, the long staple (fibre or lint) Takfa 2 cotton was crossed to a green-short staple cotton variety; thereafter (2001-2002), backcrossing to Takfa 2 and selection for good green-lint yielding cotton plants for four generations was made. In each backcrossing, seed (after ginning or separation from seed cotton) was collected in bulk from individual green- lint cotton plants exhibiting the same plant type as that of Takfa 2 but having green fibre. The seeds of BC4F1 were then sown or planted in 2003, plants with green fibre or lint were selected and their seeds were used for planting as BC4F2 in 2004 for pedigree method of selection or pure line selection.  From all planted BC4F2 plants, 574 plants were individually selected from this generation.  Then 574 families of BC4F3 seeds or lines were used for further planting for selection (in the plant-to-row pattern) in 2005.  Two hundred and eight green-lint yielding rows with the plant type or canopy similar to Takfa 2 were selected, in which 675 plants were selected for fibre quality examination.  Sixty-six plants (from 30 rows) had a standard fibre quality with the average of 24% ginning out turn fibre percentage), 1.24-inch fibre length, 18.3 g tex-1 fibre strength, 47 uniformity and 0.9 micronaire fibre fineness.   In 2006, seeds of 66 selected plants were then planted as 66 rows (plant-to-row) of BC4F4 families or lines. Only 18 rows or lines with good plant type uniformity were selected, their mean fibre qualities were 24% ginning out turn, 1.21-inch fibre length, 19 g tex-1 fibre strength, 47 uniformity and 0.6 micronaire fibre fineness.  The bulk-collected seeds of 18 individual lines were planted as BC4F5 lines in 2007.  The lines with uniformity in good plant type and green fibre quality will be evaluated for yield potential in 2008.

 

 

 

 

greenfibre

 

 

1