Examining the physiological relevance of cotton genotypes under drought condition

Abstract

The study was taken to understand the physiological and biochemical mechanisms in cotton plants under drought stress. The experiment consists of four cotton cultivars, Sahana, ARBH1651, NDLH1938 and RB611 grown in the field under rainfed (stress) and irrigated conditions (non-stress). All morphological, physiological and biochemical parameters were recorded. Among the cultivars, ARBH 1651 and RB 611 showed better response to stress in terms of Relative water content, Proline content, Boll weight, seed cotton yield, Drought susceptibility index etc. Although, the cultivar Sahana recorded highest cotton yield, it showed susceptibility to stress. Hence this study concludes that the cotton cultivars ARBH 1651 and RB 611 gives better yield during rainfed condition (stress) than under irrigated conditions which indicates that these cultivars have better tolerance mechanisms to combat drought stress to some extent.