Impact of Defoliation Timings and Leaf Pubescence on Yield and Fiber Quality of Cotton

Abstract

Defoliation is an important management practice of cotton production. Field experiments were conducted for exploring response of cotton to defoliant application times at various percentages of boll opening on seed cotton yield and fiber quality. Experiments were arranged in split - plot design with defoliation times (control, 40, 60, and 80% open boll) as the main plots a nd cultivars (hairy leaf, semi - smooth leaf, and smooth leaf) as subplots, with three replicates. The pooled results indicated that early application of harvest aid products significantly reduced seed cotton yield, boll number per plant, micronaire and fibe r length. Significant reductions in seed cotton yield occurred with defoliant applications both prior to and after 60% open boll application timing. Application at 40% followed by boll opening had the maximum number of the green leaves remaining on the pla nt at 14, 21, and 28 days after treatments and a corresponding high trash content and high leaf grade. However, except for the leaf grade, the number of green leaves remaining on the plant after defoliation and the trash content, varietal differences were non - significant. Smooth leaf cultivar (SG 125) had the highest number of green leaves left on the plant after treatment (79.2) compared with hairy (71.9) and semi - smooth leaf (77.1) cultivars. It was concluded that cotton cultivars with varying levels of l eaf hairiness impacted the defoliation efficacy of the harvest aid products. Keywords: Harvest aids, Leaf hairiness, Micronaire, Open boll percentage, Trash content