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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Florence, South Carolina » Coastal Plain Soil, Water and Plant Conservation Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #374371
Research Project: Effective Cotton Genetics and Management Practices for Improved Cotton Quality and Production

Location: Coastal Plain Soil, Water and Plant Conservation Research

Title: Examining the relationship between agronomic performance and fiber quality in ten cotton breeding populations

Author
item Campbell, Benjamin - Todd

Submitted to: Crop Science
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/29/2020
Publication Date: 1/27/2021
Citation: Campbell, B.T. 2021. Examining the relationship between agronomic performance and fiber quality in ten cotton breeding populations. Crop Science. 61:989-1001. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.20370.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.20370

Interpretive Summary: Future cotton production systems need improved fiber quality to meet global market demands and provide the textile industry high quality fiber. To achieve this, cotton breeding programs must develop cultivars that overcome the negative relationship between agronomic performance and fiber quality. Since 1935, the USDA-ARS Pee Dee germplasm enhancement program has prioritized improving fiber quality while also maintaining or enhancing agronomic performance. Previously, the Pee Dee program developed a number of breeding lines that overcome the negative relationship between agronomic performance and fiber quality. The objective of this study was to use these breeding lines as parents and assess the relationship between agronomic performance and fiber quality in large, early generation populations to determine if the negative relationship was influenced by the choice of parents. Results suggest that using parents with a decreased negative relationship can result in offspring with a decreased negative relationship; however, their frequency is low. Together with selecting appropriate parents, large population sizes are required to identify offspring with high agronomic performance and fiber quality.

Technical Abstract: Future cotton production systems need improved fiber quality to meet global market demands and provide the textile industry high quality fiber. To achieve this, cotton breeding programs must develop cultivars that overcome the negative relationship between agronomic performance and fiber quality. Since 1935, the USDA-ARS Pee Dee germplasm enhancement program has prioritized improving fiber quality while also maintaining or enhancing agronomic performance. Along with a number of other breeding programs, the Pee Dee program documented the negative relationship between agronomic performance and fiber quality is most often due to genetic linkage. Several of these breeding programs have demonstrated the negative genetic linkage can be overcome. In this study, we test the hypothesis that three Pee Dee germplasm lines previously identified as rare recombinants can generate populations with a decreased negative relationship between agronomic performance and fiber quality. Results suggest that two of the three Pee Dee germplasm lines generate populations with a decreased negative relationship and presumably transmit beneficial allelic combinations for lint percent and fiber quality traits in coupling phase linkage with one another or fixed in offspring.