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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Stoneville, Mississippi » Crop Genetics Research » Research » Research Project #441971

Research Project: Developing Cotton Germplasm for U.S. Growers Resistant to Diseases and Environmental Stresses

Location: Crop Genetics Research

Project Number: 6066-21000-053-002-N
Project Type: Non-Funded Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Jun 1, 2022
End Date: May 31, 2026

Objective:
To develop cotton germplasm in elite but diverse backgrounds with resistance to emerging cotton diseases or tolerance to abiotic stresses exacerbated by the changing environment. All germplasm will be made publicly available.

Approach:
Breeding programs to develop commercial cotton cultivars typically involve making numerous bi-parental crosses, selecting among the resulting progeny and advancing the best selections multiple generations to produce near-homozygous lines that are released as cultivars. This has resulted in a narrowing of the genetic diversity base of U.S. cotton. Using random inter-mating in cotton has been shown to broaden the genetic base and reduce negative associations between yield and fiber quality. However, because of the labor involved with making manual crosses, multiple parent population breeding with inter-mating is seldom used in cotton breeding programs. A dominant male-sterility gene (Ms4) exists and could be a useful tool to facilitate large scale cross pollination in cotton improvement programs. Our project will use this tool to develop populations introgressed with traits of interest to breeders that can be used to rapidly derive improved cotton lines for cultivar development. Populations will be released in two forms: as a segregating Ms4 population for further development and also as a male-fertile S1 bulk for cotton line derivation. The cooperator has already shared the novel ms4 germplasm through a previous agreement and they have the expertise with the male-sterile methodology that will allow us to rapidly incorporate traits of interest into U.S. cotton lines.