Yanal Ahmad Alkuddsi , S.S Patil , S.M. Manjula , B.C Patil , K.J. Pranesh , S. Rajeev , P. Swathi , H.M. Ranganatha

ARS Dharwad Farm, UAS Dharwad, Karnataka, 580005
Author    Correspondence author
Bt Research, 2013, Vol. 4, No. 5   doi: 10.5376/bt.2013.04.0005
Received: 30 Jun., 2013    Accepted: 03 Sep., 2013    Published: 06 Dec., 2013

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Alkuddsi et al., 2013, Mismatch in Source and Sink as a Reason Determining Realized Potentiality of Bt Cotton Hybrids, Bt Research, Vol.4, No.5 24-28 (doi: 10.5376/bt.2013.04.0005)

The onset of Bt era has lead to increase in productivity of cotton in Indian scenario. Many of the hybrids commercialized in the initial phase were those hybrids which were popular in non Bt era and some of them have failed to give same high productivity in their Bt form. A comparison of Bt cotton hybrids for productivity, plant type features has revealed that though Bt cotton hybrids revealed increased productivity some hybrids reveal early scenecense leading to a more determinate habit. The increase in yield in these hybrids mostly comes from the bolls borne on the lower half of the plant than the upper half of the plant. There is a mismatch between the source and sink especially in the upper half of the plant. These hybrids reveal visibly weakened leaves at a later stage as a result of which they show reduced photosynthetic activity. As compared to this, some of the most potential hybrids remained green and photosynthetically active enough to support the increased reproductive load. There is a fairly comparable harvest index in both upper and lower halves. Thus these hybrids reveal higher productivity in both lower and upper halves of the plant canopy. This observation has an important implication in plant breeding that the parents(at least one of them) chosen for developing Bt hybrids should have strong photosynthetic system and stay green nature so that the hybrid is capable of withstand enhanced Bt gene induced reproductive load.

Bt gene; Cotton; Source ; Sink