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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 #308278

Title: Genomic exploitation of genetic variation for crop improvement

Author
item Yu, John

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/1/2014
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Crop plants produce food, fiber, and fuel that are essential to human civilization and mainstays of economic prosperity. Our society continues to cultivate and improve the crop plants for better quality and productivity with sustainable environments. The process of crop genetic improvement has been tedious because most biological traits of interest are polygenic, complex, and thus challenging. Contemporary genomic revolution offers unprecedented opportunities to fully exploit the huge potential of naturally occurring genetic variation within the plant genomes. One example is 50-species Gossypium genus that is the source of the world's leading natural fiber and an important oilseed in the global market. A better understanding of genetic variation in cotton plants is achieved through integrated mapping and sequencing of large and complex genomes, as well as through molecular analysis of the genetic diversity otherwise buried in the Gossypium germplasms. Identification and elucidation of gene islands, quantitative trait loci, and regulatory networks in cotton's sub-genomes or individual chromosomes shed light into evolutionary and functional roles that are played at various stages of cotton growth and fiber development. The discovery of new genomic insights facilitates innovative designs for genetic improvement via molecular breeding technology. Post-genomics applications from the lab bench to the farmland in the foreseeable future will be discussed that require multi-disciplinary approaches to organizing, synthesizing, browsing, and translating the newly derived knowledge base of genetic variation for enhanced cultivar development.