Delta and Pine Land Company breeding efforts focus on yield and fiber quality progress. To determine whether or not that objective is being met over time, the company's technical services and research groups conducted a major data analysis project into variety improvement. The paper was presented Friday, January 6 during the Cotton Improvement Conference.

Dr. Tom Kerby headed the project reviewing data from the last 25 years. He says, "The US cotton production system has experienced many changes in recent decades - from transgenics, improved agronomic practices and more all of which have been rumored to have positive impacts on the farm. However, reports of yield stagnation and a decline in fiber quality were common points of discussion and interest during the late 1990s and early 2000s."

Kerby wanted to face the challenge of comparing results over sufficient geographies and years to determine whether any real change in yield or quality was due to varieties. The creation of a central databank in which D&PL accumulated all sources of variety testing data (company and public) and developing query tools to extract and analyze variety performance data several years ago enabled the company to conduct such a massive data comparison project. Projects of this magnitude and significance resulted in Kerby's receiving the Cotton Physiology Award on Thursday.

"This extensive database was used to analyze the yield and fiber quality changes of 45 D&PL varieties released between 1981 and 2005 to demonstrate variety contribution to yield and fiber quality." Kerby said. "We decided to use two methods of analysis and a total of 1557 test locations from 1994 to 2005 met the criteria for use in this analysis. Both methods resulted in nearly identical results for statistically significant and meaningful increases in yield during the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s. Those increases seem modest now as recent advances have been much greater...
Comparing varieties introduced from 2001 to 2005 to previous yields, we saw an average increase of 15.0 pounds per acre per year."

Fiber quality was tested in a single format and showed modest changes in length, strength, uniformity and micronaire.

"The data clearly shows that over the past 25 years, significant progress has been made in both yield and fiber quality and most of that progress has been made in the last five years. Our breeders are definitely making progress on D&PL's long-term objective to continue raising the yield and quality bar," Kerby concludes.

Delta and Pine Land Company is a leading commercial breeder, producer and marketer of cotton planting seed. Headquartered in Scott, Mississippi, with multiple offices in eight states and facilities in several foreign countries, D&PL also breeds, produces and markets soybean planting seed in the U.S.