Heterosis and Combining Ability of Cotton under Ethiopian Condition

This book indicates the importance of heterosis for increasing cotton yield and fiber quality improvements. There was sufficient genetic variability between parent and generations. It was evident to find the yield superiority of F1 hybrid over parents and F2 generations. F1 hybrids showed an overall, significant and exploitable advantage of 30.1, 9.2 and 21.2 % for lint yield fiber length and strength, respectively. Significant improvement opportunities exist for fiber length and strength at 21.8 and 39.1 %, respectively without sacrificing current yield status of commercial cultivars. Heritability values were more than 70% for most of the traits. Significant opportunities exist to improve yield and fiber quality by utilizing best parents in breeding programs, exploiting F1 hybrids and early generation selection. Evaluation of various methods of hybrid seed production techniques should be very essential.