Natural Crossing in Cotton (<i>Gossypium hirsutum</i> L.) in the Delta of Mississippi¹

Abstract

The glandless trait was used to study the amount of natural crossing in cotton ( Gossypium hirsutum L.) in the Delta of Mississippi. We sampled 102 hills of glandless cotton planted in fields of glanded cotton at 11 locations in 1972. Natural crossing varied from. 0.0 to 5.9% and averaged 2.0%. There was only 0.2% natural crossing in the five Central Delta locations. These results indicate that in the Central Delta of Mississippi, cotton is essentially a self‐pollinated crop.