FH-444: A HIGH YIELDING AND SUPERIOR FIBER QUALITY UPLAND COTTON VARIETY SUITABLE FOR COTTON GROWING AREAS OF PUNJAB, PAKISTAN

FH-444 is a new Bt cotton variety which was released during the year 2020-21 by Cotton Research Station, Ayub Agricultural Research Institute, for irrigated areas of Punjab, Pakistan to maintain fiber quality and production through gradually replacement of existing cotton cultivars to avoid the yield losses caused by insect, pest and unexpected disease attacks. The FH-444 possesses drought tolerance and very good combination of traits to meet the requirements of the farmers, pickers, ginners, spinners and textile industry. The evaluation of this promising line was started during 2011-12 in different yield tests viz: preliminary & advance yield trials, Provincial Coordinated Cotton Trial (PCCT), National Coordinated Varietal Trial (NCVT), Distinctness, Uniformity and Stability (DUS) Trial, Agronomic trials, 1.25 Acre trials etc. In preliminary yield trials, FH-444 showed 45.96% increase in yield (3592 kg/ha) over standard variety FH-113 (2461 kg/ha) during 2011-12 while in advanced yield trials, FH-444 exhibited 23.61% increase in yield (3408 kg/ha) over standard variety FH-113 (2757 kg/ha) during 2013-14. It was also found that the effects of Cotton Leaf Curl Disease (CLCuD) were lower (1.7 %) in FH-444 during growing season of 2014-15, while FH-142 showed increased incidence of attack (4.9%). FH-444 demonstrated significant resistance with respect to thrips, whitefly, jassid and pink bollworm infestation. In present study it was found that the variety FH-444 possesses higher yield potential and will contribute to improve cotton yield and production under different stress conditions.


INTRODUCTION
Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) plays a vital role in the economy of Pakistan. Cotton is the most important natural fiber producing crop in the world and represents a vital agricultural commodity in the global economy (Khan, 2003;Khattak et al., 2014). Cotton and its products contribute 0.6 % of GDP and about 2.4% to value added in agriculture sector (Anonymous, 2021). It is a big source of textile fiber, oil and cotton seed meal. In severe climatic conditions of Pakistan cotton breeders not only focus on seed cotton and lint yield but also have to breed for CLCuD tolerance/ resistance, heat tolerance, along with superior fiber quality and better boll size (Saturnino et al., 2002;Sheikh et al., 2003). Knowledge about genetic basis of heat tolerance traits is very useful for the development of heat tolerant cotton genotypes (Azhar et al., 2020). Keeping in view the demands of the farmers and industry, Cotton Research Station Faisalabad has already developed CLCuD and heat tolerant varieties like FH-142, FH-Lalazar and FH-152 which not only have the capacity to resist boll worms but also have the potential to yield better in different agro-ecological zones of Pakistan. The farmers of the country has a long standing desire for a variety possessing broad spectrum resistance / tolerance against various biotic and abiotic factors along with higher yield potential and suitable for early and normal sowing (Bronson et al., 2001;Sainju et al., 2005;Ahmad et al., 2020). A new variety FH-444 developed at Cotton Research Station Faisalabad had all the characteristics that can fulfill the demands of farmers. The main features of this variety are higher seed cotton yield, highly heat tolerant, tolerant against drought, possesses better tolerance against sucking insect pests, medium boll size, good fiber traits and highly input responsive which are relative to the findings of Abbas et al., 2013;Azam et al., 2013;Puspito et al., 2015;Qamar et al., 2015ab. Therefore, the adaptation of FH 444 variety by cotton growers will solve the most of their field problems.  had been developed at Cotton Research Station, Faisalabad during 2020-21 through hybridization.

Parentage/Pedigree
The single cross was attempted between FH-930 (Bt) and . After passing through continuous pedigree selection, the material was coded as FH-444.

Field Evaluation
The local field evaluation of FH-444 at station yield trials was started in 2012-13 which continued upto 2016-17 in preliminary and advanced yield trials. After that, this strain was tested in provincial and national trials from 2017 to 2019. After passing all trials, this strain was recommended by Expert Sub Committee for approval during 2019-20 and was finally approved by Punjab seed council during 2020-21.

Chronological development:
The chronological development of FH-444 is given in Table 1.

National yield trials
The data from Table 3 indicated that the average seed cotton yield of FH-444 at NCVT and PCCT trials showed higher yield 2888kg/ha and 2416kg/ha respectively as

Fiber characteristics
The data indicates that the average GOT% was reported as 43% for all of the locations in Table 4. The higher staple length was reported at CCRI, Multan and NIBGE, FSD growing locations as compared with other locations. The higher fiber fineness was reported for locations NIBGE, FSD and APTMA. The highest fiber strength was recorded for location CRI, Multan while higher fiber uniformity was reported for location CCRI, Multan. Good fiber strength and fineness revealed that FH-444 may be used to enhance fiber quality of cotton as reported in previous studies by (Meena et al., 2007;Rizwan et al., 2015).

Bt identification
The presence of Bt. gene was found positive for all of the locations with 100% trait purity. The higher amount of protein was found for location NIBGE in Table 5.

Morphological & cotton leaf curl disease (CLCuD) data
The data from    (Robertson et al., 2007) while studying cotton physiology.

Sowing date study
The yield data recorded was analyzed by using software statistix 8.1. The data presented in Table 8    yielding 1116 kg/ha seed cotton yield was significantly lower than all early sowing dates. Whereas, in case of interaction, 1 st May sowing date proved best sowing time for FH-444 by giving 3756 kg/ha seed cotton yield. Huang, (2016) also reported the effect of different sowing dates on seed cotton yield.

ENTOMOLOGICAL PHASE Relative resistance test against pink boll bollworm &sucking pests attack
Sucking insect pest population and pink bollworm infestation were recorded among different cultivars of cotton. All the genotypes demonstrated significant variation with respect to thrips, whitefly, jassid and pink bollworm infestation. The studied genotypes established population of thrips ranging from 6.2 to 9.0/ White fly 1.5 to 7.2/leaf and jassid 0.5 to 1.8/leaf respectively. FH-242 showed more infestation of pink boll worm larvae 0.6/5 plants followed by FH-326 and FH-313 (0.4 pink boll worm/5plants). Considerable damage have been caused by Bt-resistant pink bollworm larvae which led to panic in the cotton sectors of India and Pakistan (Rao et al. 2021). The Strain FH-444 gave best results related to sucking insect  Table 9 indicated that the strain FH-444 showed better performance against insect pest attacks; therefore, it was screened out as tolerant variety against CLCuD, white fly, thrips, army worm, spotted bollworm, American bollworm and pink bollworm.

CONCLUSION
Although, cotton breeders has released a large number of cotton varieties for general cultivation to the farmers in the province Punjab, but some of them, considered long-lasting varieties by the farmers due to their longstay in the field along with their high yielding worth. Cotton varieties like CIM-602, FH-142, CIM-602, IUB-13, MNH-886 and MNH-992 would remember as some of the important varieties in this regard. Moreover, with the passage of time the potential and genetic sole of these varieties, under the scenario of global warming were deteriorated. On the façade of CLCuD, the canvass of diseases infestation was multiplying in wider range on existing susceptible cotton varieties.
There was need to develop such cotton varieties which showed resistance against varying environmental conditions, disease and insect pest attack, while showed higher cotton seed as well as fiber yield with good and improved quality. The reporting variety FH-444 may be a higher potential genotype to improve cotton yield and production under different stress conditions.