Location: Crop Genetics Research
Project Number: 6066-22000-094-002-A
Project Type: Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Sep 20, 2025
End Date: Sep 19, 2027
Objective:
1. Determine the efficacy of different production practices on mitigating the effects of the pest threats, especially nematodes.
2. Monitor for emerging cotton pests and plant diseases and develop methods to evaluate cotton plant diseases, especially early season threats, and use them to identify cotton lines with genetic resistance to these diseases.
3. Characterize plant growth and development responses following exposure to pests especially reniform nematodes or those pests prevalent early in the growing season such as those presented by seedling disease-causing organisms.
Approach:
Trials will be conducted in growth chambers in pots infested with the reniform nematode. Research trials will consider two commercially available reniform nematode-resistant cotton cultivars and a reniform nematode-resistant breeding line and include the necessary reniform nematode-susceptible lines as checks
To identify the early season pests and plant diseases that should be targeted for diagnostic screening tests of cotton lines and cultivars, a statewide monitoring will be conducted throughout the 2026 growing season and repeated in 2027. The information will be collected from the Mississippi State University collaborators and their colleagues to provide the best possible information that will be distributed to the farmers.
Based on the monitoring results, diseases will be prioritized and diagnostic screening protocols implemented for elite cotton breeding lines and commercial cultivars. Early season diseases have already been identified as perennial problems with few economically viable mitigation solutions. For example, seedling disease, including disease caused by Rhizoctonia solani is responsible for estimated losses of 140,745 bales (67 million lbs) of cotton annually. Commercially available cultivars with documented resistance to R. solani are not currently available. There is a new greenhouse screening test that should be evaluated in this project and used to identify cotton lines with resistance / tolerance to R. solani. This is a priority because of the lack of resistant cultivars for the farmers.
Moreover, continuing to integrate new technologies into plant disease surveys such as aerial imagery with the addition of multispectral imaging have the potential to become more important tools. Using such practices as drone technology could benefit this project by helping to elucidate patterns in field situations and how those may play a role in early season disease issues. Overlaying drone imagery with commercial field boundaries as well as soil classification information may help determine fields and areas within fields that are more prone to seedling diseases. Using these tools to develop and characterize the influence of field situations on seedling diseases will allow us to develop better management practices for the farmers.
Additional diseases of economic importance with the ability to cause significant economic losses for cotton farmers, such as bacterial blight, will also be screened under this project. As the project moves forward, monitoring, including through plant disease surveys, will remain a critical component of the overall approach and development of new screening protocols will be based on the results of the monitoring. As new pest threats emerge, the project will respond proactively to address those threats as they occur throughout Mississippi. This research supports the Secretary of Agriculture’s priorities to Increasing Profitability of Farmers and protect U.S. agriculture from invasive pest species.