Abstract:
A project examining ways of improving the water use efficiency of cotton through breeding has now been completed. This paper summarises the results of four years research. There was an interaction between cultivar and water environment, created by two okra leaf cultivars, Siokra L23 and Siokra 1-4 yielding relatively better under raingrown compared to irrigated. Cultivar maturity was highly correlated with raingrown yield and for each day increase in maturity yield increased by 34.4 kg/ha. Longer season cultivars had greater agronomic and leaf WUE than shorter season cultivars. This maturity, together with okra leaf produced the greatest WUE. Heritability of WUE traits in breeding populations was moderate to low and may still have some utility as selection criteria. A breeding strategy is presented which incorporates new techniques into the current breeding programme
