Abstract
Thirty five advanced cotton lines including nine hybrids in National Coordinated Varietal Trials (NCVT) and twenty six lines in Provincial Coordinated Cotton Trials (PCCT) were planted in order to test their performance related to Cotton Leaf Curl Virus (CLCuD-B) disease and seed cotton yield. These experiments were laid out in core area (Cotton Research Station, Vehari) and in non core-area (Cotton Research Station, Sahiwal) during May, 2008 as per proposed plan. Twenty six coded varieties in NCVT were found with higher CLCuV disease incidence within 85-100% range and a drastic seed cotton yield variation was noticed in seed cotton yield ranging from 654 Kg/ha to 1903.52 Kg/ha. The variety V22 (NIBGE-II) out yielded the rest entries with maximum seed cotton yield of 1903.52Kg/ha with 87% CLCUV disease infection. It was followed by V13 with 1439.53 Kg/ha seed cotton yield and 100% disease incidence. While nine cotton hybrids in NCHT had 85 to 100% CLCuV disease incidence with yield ranging from 273.63 Kg/ha to 499.69 Kg/ha seed cotton yield. Twenty six advanced lines in PCCT showed severe infection of CLCuV disease up to 79.94% range. The seed cotton yield of these varieties varied from 1435-3588 Kg/ha. Both the coded genotypes V11 and V26 promised the same highest cotton yield as 3588 Kg/ha with 84% and 89% disease incidence respectively. Results indicated that core area (Vehari) is an ideal hot spot place/site for appraisal of cotton varieties performance under high pressure of CLCuV disease. Hence the cotton varieties with good yield potential even in presence of CLCuV disease can be better exploited in hybridization program for development of superior cotton varieties
