Irrigated cotton in the tropical dry season. III: Impact of temperature,cultivar and sowing date on fibre quality

Depending on sowing month, temperatures during boll growth in the tropical dry season are potentially sub- or supra optimal for the fibre quality parameters length and strength. The aims of this research were to: (1) measure the effect of sowing date on the quality of fibre from cotton grown during the dry season as this was not known; (2) use the range in temperature created by varying sowing date in the dry season, to derive relationships with gin turnout, the fibre quality parameters length, strength and micronaire. Over three seasons, two Gossypium hirsutum (upland) cultivars and one Gossypium barbadense cultivar were sown from March to June at the Ord River (15.5°S), Western Australia. For the highest yielding sowing months of March and April, fibre length and strength were at or below market preference due to relatively low temperatures and solar radiation during early fibre development. Fibre micronaire achieved market preference at all sowing months due to favourable late season temperatures and radiation. It is likely that current G. barbadense cultivars will have short fibre when grown in the dry season. For fibre length and gin turnout quadratic responses (p < 0.05) to weighted minimum temperature were fitted for each cultivar, where the optimum minimum temperature was 18–20 and 16–17 °C, respectively. The cultivar differences in fibre properties observed here suggest that wider screening may identify G. hirsutum cultivars with suitable fibre length and strength in the dry season. It was demonstrated by weighting of temperatures for the contribution of the cohort of bolls pollinated each day; the variation in crop fibre quality and gin turnout in the field due to temperature can be predicted.