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ARS Home » Plains Area » College Station, Texas » Southern Plains Agricultural Research Center » Crop Germplasm Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #425032
Research Project: Management of Cotton Genetic Resources and Genetic Improvement of Cotton

Location: Crop Germplasm Research

Title: The National Plant Germplasm System cotton collection – a review of germplasm resources, phenotypic characterization, and molecular variation

Author
item Hinze, Lori
item Udall, Joshua
item Yu, John
item Frelichowski, James

Submitted to: Theoretical and Applied Genetics
Publication Type: Review Article
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/29/2025
Publication Date: 8/20/2025
Citation: Hinze, L.L., Udall, J.A., Yu, J., Frelichowski, J.E. 2025. The National Plant Germplasm System cotton collection – a review of germplasm resources, phenotypic characterization, and molecular variation. Theoretical and Applied Genetics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-025-05009-4.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-025-05009-4

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: This review aims to investigate the status of phenotypic and molecular characterization efforts in the National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS) cotton collection, highlighting progress to date to maximize the efficiency of future characterization efforts. We studied the cotton collection report submitted annually to the NPGS cotton crop germplasm committee, as well as published reports of characterization activities involving the cotton collection. The characterization activities summarized here were from larger studies (approximately 100 or more accessions evaluated) published within the past 10 years. We examined studies of qualitative descriptors and quantitative phenotypes as well as molecular genotypes measured using SSRs, SNP arrays, sequence-based SNPs, and de novo sequences. Our review indicates that there have been many efforts of varying sizes and scopes that characterized accessions from the cotton collection. The intent of these efforts was often to characterize accessions that fit a particular research objective rather than to characterize the collection per se. However, large scale efforts with the objective of characterizing the collection per se have also been reported. We feel that this review illustrates a very conservative assessment of the impact of the NPGS cotton collection as it has vast utility beyond that recognized in published reports. This review underscores the importance of users of the collection and their vital role in providing a better understanding of its contents to the cotton community.