General Maturity Groups for Cotton Varieties

Three maturity groupings are often used to classify cotton varieties, consisting of: 1) short season or more determinate plants, 2) medium season varieties, and 3) long or full season varieties which are more indeterminate in nature. Classification of cotton varieties into one of these three categories is not necessarily straightforward in all cases. In fact, it easily can become a process of “splitting hairs” when making maturity grouping designations for cotton varieties. Nevertheless, maturity designations are commonly assigned to most commercially available varieties, which can effect selection and management.