When selecting a variety, look at the yield and fiber quality for that variety for several years at more than one location. If a variety performs consistently in a wide variety of conditions then is should perform well in most conditions that it will encounter in the future on your farm. A sincere thanks to the many contributors who have made the Cotton Variety Evaluation Tests possible. Financial assistance from the Virginia Agricultural Council to help fund a part of this program is gratefully acknowledged. The performance of a variety cannot be measured with absolute precision.
Uncontrollable variability is involved in the determination of yield average.
This yield variability may occur due to uncontrolled factors such as soil type, weed and disease incidence, but many other factors may contribute to it. Because variability exists in all field experimentation, statistics are used as a tool to assist with making decisions. The LSD is quite simple to apply. When two entries are compared and the difference between them is greater than the LSD, the entries are judged to be significantly different. Differences smaller than the LSD may have occurred by chance and are judged to be not significant.