252 



KUMPTA COTTON AND ITS IMPROVEMENT 



From this table it will be noticed that one inch length of each type of 

 branch carried the following number of bolls : — • 



It is thus obvious that expenditure of energy in growing long limbs or 

 axillaries in all three types is largely wasted, and that if a strain of equal vigour 

 can be found which expends its energy in growing fruiting branches rather 

 than limbs and axillaries, it will probably be a much higher yielding type of 



plant. 



In the case of broach cotton the fruiting branches are greatly smothered 

 by the vigorously growing limbs and axillaries, and this fact can be experi- 

 mentallv proved by removing the latter as soon as they appear, w^hen the 

 fruiting branches show marked increase in vigom- and bearing. This effect 

 is also clearly seen in early ard late sown broach cotton at Dharwar. When 

 the sowino- is done early (in July) broach cotton becomes very vegetative, 

 bearing weak and insignificant fruiting branches. If, however, the sowing is 

 done late (in August) the rank growth is greatly checked and the fruiting 

 branches show themselves well. ' The extravagance of the vegetative branches 

 in the case of other cottons is marked on. heavily manured fields where the 

 plants yield very little in proportion to their size. 



The fruiting branches, therefore, imless smothered or suppressed, yield a 

 larger number of bolls than other parts. They also produce bigger bolls in 

 many cases. In hiimpla cotton I have found that nine bolls on the fruiting 

 branches are normally equal to ten on the limbs and twelve on the axillaries. 

 For these reasons our efforts to augment the outturn should, it would seem, 

 be directed towards curtailing the vegetative growth and increasing the number 

 of fruiting branches per acre, if th's can be done without decreasing the general 

 vio^our of the plant. This, it would seem likely, might be done by growing an 

 erect type as thick as it will conveniently stand. The individual plants of 

 this type may not look as prolific as those of the bushy type when the latter 

 have ample space. But the comparison which has always to be made is not 

 in the yield per plant, but in the yield per acre. And hence in all such com- 

 parisons a row of plants sufficiently long must be taken as a unit. 



