SVPR 4 – A High Yielding Superior Medium Staple Cotton Variety for Summer Irrigated / Rice Fallow Tracts of Tamil Nadu

SVPR 4 is a high yielding superior medium staple cotton variety developed at Cotton Research Station, Srivilliputtur. It was released in the year of 2009 for summer irrigated/ Rice fallow cotton tracts of Tamil Nadu. It is a hybrid derivative of the cross between MCU 5 and S 4727. SVPR 4 cotton is robust in nature with determinant growth habit and matures in 150 days. It has recorded an average seed cotton yield of 1583 kg/ha which is 13.0 % increase over SVPR 2. Its fibre qualities are comparably superior to SVPR 2 with 27.9 mm span length and 22.5 g/ tex strength. The cotton SVPR 4 can spin 40’s counts which is the current demand of the textile Industries. It is moderately resistant to leaf hopper and tolerant to drought in summer irrigated season. Hence, SVPR 4 cotton was released as an alternate variety to replace SVPR 2 in summer irrigated cotton area and SVPR 3 in rice fallow tracts of Tamil Nadu.

In Tamil Nadu cotton is cultivated in different eco systems of which the high productivity and production is realized in summer irrigated / rice fallow condition. The present acreage of 40,000 hectare is very meagre and there is a great possibility for expanding the area in rice fallow / summer condition (Koodalingam et al., 1998). Cotton consumption is increasing day by day, beyond 90 lakh bales per annum and our production remains static, i.e 5 lakh bales/annum. The area of cotton is declining from 2.5 lakhs ha to 1.6 lakh ha in the current year 2010-2011(Anon, 2010. Even though many Bt cotton hybrids were released, it could not meet the current requirement of Tamil Nadu. It needs location specific varieties for different situations. None of the Bt. hybrid / Non Bt hybrid was found to adopt in summer condition. The location specific varieties suitable for this situation are SVPR 2 for summer irrigated and SVPR 3/MCU 7 for rice fallow cultivation of Tamil Nadu. Since the recent requirement of textile industries towards 40's counts, the existing varieties could not match the requirements. Hence to overcome the above situation, attempts were made to develop a high yielding cotton variety with recent CIRCOT quality norms and the release of SVPR 4 cotton variety can meet this demand.

Materials and Methods
Long staple cotton variety MCU 5 was taken as base parent and crossed with multiple resistant donor S 4727 during 1997. Pedigree method of selection was followed from F2 to F5 generations under unprotected condition for screening against leaf hopper. A superior segregant with resistance to leaf hopper and drought was isolated in F2

Results and Discussion
The culture TSH 9704 (SVPR 4) was tested at Cotton Research Station, Srivilliputtur from the year 2000 to 2008. The mean of ten yield trials conducted over eight years indicated consistent superiority of the culture over the standard check SVPR 2. It has recorded an average seed cotton yield of 2170 kg/ ha as against 1657 kg/ha for SVPR 2, accounting for 31.0 % increase over check SVPR 2 (Table 1).

In
All India Co-ordinated Cotton Improvement Project (AICCIP) trials, the culture TSH 9704 was tested in Initial Evaluation Trial (Breeding 02 (a)) during 2002 and in Preliminary Varietal Trial (Br. 03 (a)) and Coordinated Varietal Trial for rice fallow l(Br.04 (c) 1 during 2003. TSH 9704 has established its superiority over SVPR 3 (zonal check) and local check SVPR 2 by recording 10.1 % increase over SVPR 2 and 17.1 % increase over SVPR 3 respectively (Table 1).
During summer 2003, TSH 9704 was tested MLT (two TNAU research station trials) and registered an average seed cotton yield of 1932 kg/ha against  Besides its high yield, TSH 9704 also possess higher lint yield (573 kg/ha) than SVPR 2 (504 kg/ ha). TSH 9704 is a superior medium staple cotton with an average 2.5 % span length of 27.9 mm, fibre   % during peak flowering stage when the night temperature attains the maximum of more than 27°C. Stem and leaf petioles are pigmented with purple colour when exposed to high intensity of sunlight. This adoption mechanism has avoided the absorption of sunlight during summer season.
Hence it is tolerant to drought (Table 6) adopted to and high night temperature prevailing in summer season. In IPM demonstration plot, the culture TSH 9704 has recorded an average seed cotton yield of 2220 kg/ha in ASIPM plot which is 13.9 % increase against the conventional method (1950 kg/ha). Hence it is suitable for Adaptable Srivilliputtur IPM Module under summer condition (Table 7).
An overall analysis revealed that the cotton culture TSH 9704 was superior over SVPR 2 with an average seed cotton yield of 1583 kg/ha against 1402 kg/ha of SVPR 2. The yield increase of TSH 9704 is 13.0 % over SVPR 2 (Table 1). It has recorded the maximum yield potential of 3772 kg kapas per hectare at LAM Farm, Guntur in the National trial of AICCIP. Based on the above desirable features the cotton culture TSH 9704 was released as SVPR 4

Two distinguishing morphological features
Stem is slightly pubescent, pigmented with purple colour when exposed to sunlight (Anon, 1997).

Cream petal with yellow pollen
The other morphological characters are Plant height : 100 -120 cm Distinguishing morphological characters (as in Crop Production Guide) : Stem is slightly pubescent, pigmented with purple colour when exposed to sunlight. Cream petal with yellow pollen