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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Stoneville, Mississippi » Crop Genetics Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #293039
Title: Registration of tufted-naked seed in upland cotton germplasm 9023n4t

Author
item Bechere, Efrem
item AULD, DICK - Texas Tech University

Submitted to: Journal of Plant Registrations
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/19/2013
Publication Date: 12/13/2013
Citation: Bechere, E., Auld, D.L. 2013. Registration of tufted-naked seed in upland cotton germplasm 9023n4t. Journal of Plant Registrations. 8(1):63-67.

Interpretive Summary: Normal cotton is covered with lint and fuzz. Lint is textile fiber whereas fuzz is a short fiber that is difficult to gin from the seeds. Many mutations that resulted in fuzzless seeds have been reported since 1920. A common feature of these mutants is that they all have low lint turnout resulting in low lint yield. The mutant we developed, 9023n4t, through chemical mutagenesis, from the commercial cultivar SC 9023 is unique because it has partially naked body with a small tuft of fiber attached to one end of the seed. This mutant had 35 % lint turnout compared to 37 % for SC 9023. Of the most characterized naked genes, n2n2 had lint turnout of 23 % and N1N1 had only 7 %. Our mutant also had 15 % lower short fiber content and 45 % lower seed coat neps (entanglement of fibers) than SC 9023. 9023n4t had better yarn quality than other naked seed mutants and ginned faster with less energy than most commercial and transgenic cultivars. This mutant can be included in cotton breeding programs to exploit its positive traits without the fear of adverse effects from low lint turnout exhibited by other naked seed mutants.

Technical Abstract: A naked-tufted mutant called 9023n4t (PI 667553) was developed from the cultivar SC 9023 (Gossypium hirsutum L.) through chemical mutagenesis. This germplasm was developed by the Department of Plant and Soil Science, Texas Tech University and released in April, 2013. This mutant is quite unique since it has partially naked body with a small tuft attached to one end of the seed. In 1997, SC 9023 was treated with 2.45 % volume by volume ethyl methane sulfonate (EMS). The treated seeds were hand planted in the field at Lubbock, TX in 1997 and 1998. In 1999, one fuzzless M3 plant with tufted-naked seed coat was identified. From 2000 to 2003, individual plant selections were made to stabilize this trait. A stable line was developed from this effort and named 9023n4t. During 2004, 2006, and 2007 (at Lubbock, TX), 2007 (at College Station, TX), and 2011 (at Stoneville, MS), the mutant along with the wild type SC 9023, n2n2 and N1N1 (two of the most characterized naked seed genes so far) were tested in replicated tests. The lint percent of the mutant was not significantly lower than that of the wild type, 39 % higher than the lint percent of n2n2 (accession 143) and 57 % higher than N1N1 (accession 243). The mutant had 15 % lower short fiber content and 45 % lower seed coat neps than the wild type SC 9023. The naked seed tufted mutant, 9023n4t, gave higher count strength product, tenacity, and work, exhibiting its superiority in these parameters. Lower values for thin and thick places in the mutant further demonstrated the better yarn quality of 9023n4t. Furthermore, 9023n4t required significantly less net energy to gin (9.0 Wh kg-1 lint) and ginned faster (2.89 g lint sec-1) than most commercial and transgenic cultivars. This mutant can be included in cotton breeding programs to exploit its positive traits without the fear of adverse effect from low lint percent exhibited by other naked seed phenotypes.