To cite this paper: Haidar, S. and M.
AbstractThis paper describes about development of cotton mutant NIAB-2008, developed through pollen irradiation technique with improved yield and fibre quality. A local variety NIAB-78 was crossed with exotic line REBA-288 using irradiated pollen @10 Gray (Gy) of gamma rays before cross pollination. The purpose of the study was to create new genetic variability and select the desirable new cotton mutants. After irradiation and hybridization different generations were raised to evaluate the effect of irradiation treatment and induction of mutations. Significant variations from control/parents were observed in evaluated generations. From M1 seed, the M2 population was raised and different desirable mutants were selected. The selected mutants were evaluated in mutated generations (M3-M6) for different yield contributing traits and yield potential along with fibre quality and variations from parents were observed. From selected mutants, an elite mutant i.e., M-7/09, later named as NIAB-2008 was finally selected. It was evaluated for seed cotton yield, adaptability, resistance/tolerance to diseases, and fibre quality in different trials. It produced 32.9% higher seed cotton yield compared to standard CIM-496 at local NIAB trials. It produced 32.7% and 32.2% higher seed cotton yield compared to standard in provincial coordinated cotton trials (PCCT) and in national coordinated varietal trials (NCVT) respectively. The mutant NIAB-2008 has desirable fibre quality traits i.e., ginning out turn (GOT) 37.99%, fibre length 31.16 mm (long staple category), fibre fineness 4.74 µg/inch, uniformity index 83.5%, fibre maturity 80.5% and fibre strength 92.2 thousand pounds per square inch (TPPSI). Its distinguish characteristics are early maturity, high yielding, short stature, good boll bearing and better tolerance to cotton leaf curl virus-Burewala strain (CLCuV-B) disease. From these results it is concluded that low dose pollen irradiation technique has effectively stimulate/increase the different yield and yield contributing traits, fibre quality and tolerance to diseases in cotton and this technique is proved economical.