Evaluation of Cotton Drought At the Seedling Stage.

Drought is an important breeding objective for cotton improvement. Development of reliable and rapid assays to characterize drought tolerant cotton lines would enhance the rate of genetic gain in plant breeding programs. Drought tolerance of cotton was measured at multiple plant stages.  A seedling mortality curve was measured in response to drought in a greenhouse.  Older plants in the field were used to evaluate leaf temperature and growth rates in drought stressed growing conditions. These same plants were assessed for yield and fiber quality.  Results suggest that overlaying the data from the different drought evaluations can help breeders identify genotypes with the most functional drought tolerance.