Molecular Characterization and Germination Analysis of Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) Genotypes under Water Deficit Irrigation

Cotton is an important crop in terms of economic and strategic impacts. Drought stress is one of the most important environmental stress factors which negatively affects growth and yield of plants in Turkey as occurred in many countries in the world. In this study, 11 different cotton cultivars selected based on their agronomical characters were tested under water deficit irrigation strategies. Thus, it was aimed to select and/or determine appropriate new varieties for breeding new national materials resistant to drought stress, and to characterize with the molecular microsatellite markers. According to the different irrigation levels (25%, 50%, 75% and 100%) plants were observed under the stressed conditions at the irrigation levels of 50% and 25%. Among the tested varieties, Tamcot Sphinx, Tamcot 94, Tamcot CamdEs and BA525 varieties were found to be more water stress tolerant than others in terms of germination time and germinated plant. The UPGMA (Unweighted Pair-Group Method Using Arithmetic Averages) analysis was carried out using 28 markers with average 0.306 polymorphism information content (PIC) for molecular characterization studies. Based on the UPGMA results, the varieties were clustered into two groups. It is expected that the results obtained from this study might provide considerable data for improving new drought tolerant varieties