Abstract

It is frequently observed that when a wild species of cotton is crossed with the cultivated species, there is either very little setting or the hybrid is sterile. A number of workers like Mendes (1939), Beasley (1940), Harland (1940), Amin (1940, 1941), Stephens (1940), Zhebrak and Ozaev (1940) and Kasparyan (1940), have shown that it is possible to induce chromosome doubling in cotton and also to make sterile hybrids fertile when the sterility is due to failure of chromosome pairing as a result of the absence of homologous partner chromosomes. Attempts to induce chromo- some doubling in the sterile hybrids of cotton were made for two seasons, at the Cotton Breeding Station, Coimbatore. This note records the details of the trials made to transform a partially fertile hybrid between G. anomalum Wawra-et-peyr, (an African wild cotton with 26 somatic chromosomes) and G. arboreum, L (strain K. 1. with 26 somatic chromosomes)

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