Author
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Bechere, Efrem |
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Submitted to: National Cotton Council Beltwide Cotton Conference
Publication Type: Proceedings Publication Acceptance Date: 12/15/2013 Publication Date: 1/8/2014 Citation: Bechere, E. 2014. Chemically induced mutation to improve fiber traits in upland cotton. National Cotton Council Beltwide Cotton Conference. Beltwide Cotton Conference, January 6-10, 2014, New Orleans, Louisana. Interpretive Summary: Rigorous breeding for fiber quality parameters in cotton over the years has narrowed the gene pool available for cotton breeders. Chemical mutagenesis has been shown to create valuable mutants for fiber quality in other crops. The objective of this research was to develop improved fiber quality population and individual plants from the germplasm MD 15 through the use of chemical mutagenesis. Significantly high sample variances and wider ranges were observed for quality traits from the mutants as compared to the parent indicating that mutagenesis created some new valuable variants that breeders, geneticists, and other researchers can exploit. In addition to this improved population, outstanding fiber quality individual plant mutants were identified with greater mean fiber length and mean fiber strength than the best germplasm check, MD 25-26ne. Some individual mutant plants also had fiber length, fiber strength, and uniformity that performed significantly higher than MD 15. All these results indicated that chemical mutagenesis can be used as one of the tools to help overcome the narrow genetic base for some of the economically important traits controlled by few genes in cotton. Technical Abstract: Modern Upland Cotton has a narrow germplasm base that often limits the success of breeding programs. Chemically induced mutations can be used to develop improved mutant populations and individual mutants with improved fiber traits that can be exploited by cotton breeders. About 5,000 seeds of the germplasm MD 15 were mutagenized with 3.2 % volume by volume ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS). One boll plant-1 was bulk harvested and a sample of seeds from this bulk was planted in the M2 (2009), M3 (2010), and M4 (2011). This allowed for three generations of selfing which increased homozygosity and additive genetic variance. In 2011, the bulked M4 was labeled MD 15 M4 and was registered as an improved population of MD 15 for fiber traits (Reg. No. GP-957, PI 665638). From 2011 to 2013, individual mutant plants were tested for fiber length, strength, and uniformity. Plants that have significantly higher fiber strength, length and uniformity than MD 15 and the best lines registered from the program in 2013 (MD25-26ne, MD25-27 and MD25-87) have been identified. |
