COTTON 
BREEDING METHODS 
When you buy a sack of Coker 100 Wilt Breeder’s 
Registered Seed you buy more than a bag and 100 
pounds of seed. You buy the results of many years 
of well-planned breeding and careful testing, de- 
signed and conducted to give you the very best varie- 
ty that the ingenuity and knowledge of man and the 
use of efficient methods and elaborate equipment 
can produce. 
Our cotton breeding program consists of obtain- 
ing a promising breeding stock, selecting of outstand- 
ing plants within that stock, and subsequent increas- 
ing and testing of the progenies of these plants for 
several years. 
ORIGIN OF BREEDING STOCKS 
Promising breeding stocks are obtained by hy- 
bridization, inbreeding, or by using existing varie- 
ties possessing some degree of variability. Crosses 
are designed to incorporate all of the good character- 
istics of two or more varieties into one variety and 
to eliminate all the undesirable characteristics of the 
parents. 
After the cross has been made and the offspring 
becomes relatively stable, selections are made of the 
most promising plants based upon an evaluation of 
their characteristics in the field and in the laboratory. 
SELECTION AND TESTING 
The following year selected plants are grown in 
progeny rows, the outstanding rows are harvested 
individually, and the seed cotton is taken to labora- 
tories for complete analyses. Seed from rows having 
desirable combinations of yield, picking quality, re- 
gional adaptation, wilt resistance, staple length, lint 
percentage, boll size, earliness, fiber tensile strength, 
upper-half mean and mean lengths, length uniform- 
ity, fineness and maturity are planted the following 
year in 14 acre increase blocks and in replicated yield 
trials. The process of selection, testing, and increas- 
ing is continued for five more years. Each year larger 
increases are grown and tests are more elaborate and 
more widespread in location than the year previous. 
In the end a superior variety of cotton is isolated, 
proven by testing, and a sufficient quantity of 
Breeder’s Registered Seed produced for distribution 
to farms and certified seed growers. 
The breeding process is a continuous one. Every 
year a new program is initiated by selection of 
plants, every year a new strain of cotton is released, 
and every year each of the intermediate steps are 
in progress. 
Breeding and testing phases of the unified program 
are conducted at Hartsville and Chester in South 
Carolina; Lake Cormorant and Clarksdale, Missis- 
sippi; Leachville, Arkansas; and Huntsville, Ala- 
bama. Work at these locations is planned and 
handled by our own competent staff of cotton breeders 
and technicians, 
ABOVE—Henry W. Webb, Plant Breeder in Charge of Cotton 
Breeding for the Hartsville, S. C., and Chester, S. C., programs. 
BELOW—H. Maurice Larrimore, Plant Breeder in Charge of 
Cotton Breeding for the Mississippi Valley programs. 
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