1. Cotton
Shoukat A. Rather
Molecular Cytogenetics & Tissue Culture
Lab, Deptt of Crop Improvement,
CSK HPKV, Palampur, Himachal Pradesh,
India
Shoukat.pbg@gmail.com

2. Botany
• Warm season crop
• C3 plant
• Indeterminate growth habit
• Dicot
• Often cross pollinated crop
– Extent of out crossing depends upon
• Genotype
• Location
• Environment
• Family- Malvaceae
• Two types of branches
– Sympodium (Vegetative)
– Monopodium (Reproductive)

3. Production Scenario (2011-12)
• India (1st in area and 2nd in production)
– Area= 12.20 Mha
– Production= 11.30 Mt
• China (1st in production)
– Area= 5.40 Mha
– Production= 12.97 Mt
• World
– Area= 34.48 Mha
– Production= 46.62 Mt
United States Department of Agriculture, Foreign Agricultural Service

4. Economic importance
• Cotton fiber is the major commercial product
of cotton
• Cotton fiber is spun into yarn or thread that is
used in textile industry
• Cottonseed oil and cake are secondary
products of cotton
• Cottonseed meal is fed to poultry

5. Two main groups
• Old World cotton
• Diploids (2n= 2x= 26)
- Gossypium arboreum
- G. herbaceum
• New World cotton
• Allo-tetraploids (2n= 4x= 52)
- G. hirsutum
- G. barbadense

6. Progenitors
• All New World tetraploid cottons contain Old
World Cytoplasm
G. herbaceum x G. raimondii
(AA) (DD)
Tetraploid cotton
(AADD)

7. Centre of Origin
• Centre Asiatic Centre (Vavilov, 1926)
• G. arboreum- Indus Valley of India and Pakistan and
then spread over Africa and Asia
• G. herbaceum was first cultivated in Arab and Syria
• G. hirsutum- cultivated first in Mexico
• G. barbadense- Peru
Wendel, Jonathan F., Curt L. Brubaker, and Tosak Seelanan, 2010, The Origin and Evolution of Gossypium, in Physiology of
Cotton, edited by James McD. Stewart, Derrick M. Oosterhuis, James J. Heitholt and Jackson R. Mauney, Springer, pp. 1-18

8. Breeding objectives
• Improved Fiber yield
• Improved Fiber quality
• Rapid fruiting & Early maturity
• Resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses
• Improved Seed quality

9. Fiber yield
• The fiber yield of a cotton plant is determined
by
• number of bolls
• size of the bolls
• percentage of lint
• The character contributing most to fiber yield
is number of bolls per plant
Poehlman and Sleper, 1995

10. • Boll size is expressed as the weight in grams of
seed cotton (lint + seeds) per boll
• Cultivars that set a high percentage of five-
lock bolls are superior in yielding ability to
cultivars with four-lock bolls

11. • Lint production is affected by the
– seed-set (as lint is produced on the surface of the
seed)
– density of the lint on the seed
• Lint production is affected by the
– seed-set (as lint is produced on the surface of the
seed
– density of the lint on the seed

12. Fiber quality
• The spinning performance and quality of
cotton fiber is associated
– Length
– Strength
– Fineness of the fibers

13. Rapid fruiting and early maturity
• Flowering of the cotton plant is indeterminate
with bolls set over a period of time
• Rapid fruiting and early maturity
– reduce losses due to disease and insect pests
– facilitates harvesting with a mechanical picker
– increase production efficiency by reducing inputs of
fertilizer, protective chemicals & irrigation water

14. • Earliness is influenced by
– Time of flowering initiation
– Rate of development of new flowers
– The time period required for the bolls to mature
• Small compact plants and small bolls and
seeds are generally associated with earliness
in a cotton cultivar

15. Drought and heat tolerance
• Water is often a limiting resource for cotton
production in dry areas of the world
• Genetic variability for root growth and dry
matter accumulation has been demonstrated
among various cotton strains under drought
conditions

16. • Recurrent selection under drought conditions
can be used to improve drought tolerance in
cotton strains
• Selection of G. barbadense strains in periods
of high temperature at low elevations resulted
in development of strains with greater heat
tolerance

17. • Several soil fungi reduce the potential yield of cotton by causing
seed rotting and damping-off of cotton seedlings.
– Fusarium sp.
– Pythium sp.
– Rhizoctonia solani
– Thielaviopsis basicola
• Cotton is particularly vulnerable to seedling diseases when
planted in cold and wet soil
• Selection criteria in cold & wet soils
– rapid germination and
– seedling vigour
Disease resistance

18. Fusarium wilt and root knot nematode
complex
• Fusarium wilt is caused by a soil-inhabiting fungus,
Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. Vasinfectum
• Fusarium wilt is most severe on light and sandy soils
• The disease damages the water-conducting tissues of the
plant, causing wilting and premature killing
• The disease is associated with injury caused by the root
knot nematode Meloidogyne incognita which provides
openings through which the wilt fungus enters the root

19. Multiple disease resistance (MDR)
• Cotton seedlings may be simultaneously evaluated
for resistance to several common pathogens
• The procedure consists of sequential inoculation of
cotton seedlings growing in controlled
environments with different pathogens

20. Steps for MDR
• Germinate seeds in root knot nematode-infested soil
• Inoculate seedlings with bacterial blight pathogen by
scratching the cotyledon with a bacterial-laden toothpick
• Inject Fusarium wilt pathogen into stem
• Inject Verticillium wilt pathogen into stem of the plant
• Discard susceptible plants after each step and inoculate
only resistant plants in next step

21. Insect resistance
• Insect pests cause serious losses in cotton
• Insect resistant cotton varieties are needed due
to the
– development of tolerance by cotton insects to
chemical insecticides
– high cost of insecticidal control
– environmental concerns and legal restrictions on use
of chemicals

22. Cotton bollworm
• Serious cotton insect pests
– Cotton bollworm (Helicoverpa armigera)
– Pink bollworm (Pectinophora gossypiella)

23. • Resistance to the pink bollworm has been
reported in some diploid wild species
• Characters that suppress insect population
development are
– glabrous leaves
– high gossypol content
• Resistance to Lepidoptera insects by insertion of
the Bt gene from Bacillus thuringiensis through
genetic engineering

24. HISTORY OF Bt
• Berliner coined the name Bacillus thuringiensis after
isolating the strain from a grain mill in German district
of Thuriengien
• First commercial preparation prepared in 1927
• First large scale Bt based product released for sale in
1957 by Sandoz Corp.
• It was a Bt variety kurstaki strain marketed as
“Thuricide”

25. Other insect pests
• Leafhoppers (Jassids)
• Bugs
• Resistance associated with heavy pubescence
of leaves

26. Seed Quality
• Stand establishment is affected by the
germination and vigour of the seed planted
• Increase in Gossypol content in seeds causes
– discoloration in cottonseed oil
– reduces availability of lysine in cottonseed
protein
– toxicity to young swine or poultry

27. • A glandless character associated with
decrease in Gossypol content controlled by
two recessive genes
– gl2
– gl3
• Insects have a preference for glandless cotton

28. Breeding methods
• Introduction
• Selection
• Hybridization
• Mutation

29. Introduction
• Acclimatization plays a much greater role in
the development of introduced cotton
germplasm

30. • The sources of variation may be natural
mutation, segregation within a population
and natural out-crossing
• Commonly used selection methods in
handling the segregating population
developed through hybridization are
pedigree, bulk and mass selection
Selection

31. • Selection for improved yield of lint often results in a
reduction in fiber quality
• In temperate climates, it is important that the bolls be
set early so that most of the bolls will mature and
only few immature bolls remain on the plant when it
is killed by frost

32. Mutation breeding
• Employed when no natural variation exists for
the trait
• Mutation breeding is not commonly used in
cotton now

33. Hybridization
• This is the most widely used method of
developing new cotton varieties
• Employed to combine desirable features of
different cotton cultivars

34. Cotton hybrids
Basis of classification Types of Hybrids Examples
1. Species Involved 1. Intraspecific hybrids
a. Intra-hirsutum hybrids
H 4, H 6,H 8,H 10,
JKHy 1, JKHy 2,
PKV Hy 2, NHH 44, Savita,
Surya, Fateh, LHH 144,
Dhanlaxmi, Maruvikas,
Omshankar, DHH 11, CICR
HH 1
b. Intra-arboreum hybrids
2. Interspecific hybrids
a. Tetraploid hybrids
b. Diploid hybrids
LDH 11, AAH1
Varalaxmi, DCH 32,
NHB 12, HB 224, DHB 105,
TCHB 213, NHB 302, Sruthi
DH 7, DH 9, DDH 2, pha 46
2. Ploidy Level 1. Tetraploid hybrids
2. Diploid hybrids
All intra hirsutum and
interspecific hybrids between
G.hirsutum and
G.barbadense
All intra arboreum and
interspecific hybrids between
G.herbaceum and
G. arboreum
3. Methods of Hybrid
Seed Production
1. Conventional hybrids
2. Male sterility based
hybrids
All the above mentioned
hybrids.
Sununa, PKV Hy3, PKV
Hy4, MECH 4, AAH 1

35. Institutes
• International
– International Institute for Cotton (IIC),
Washington, USA
• National Institutes
– Central Institute of Cotton Research (CICR),
Nagpur, Maharashtra
– Cotton Research Station, Junagadh Agricultural
University, Gujarat

36. References
• Poehlman, J.M. and Sleper, D.A. 1995. Breeding Cotton. Breeding Field
Crops Fourth Edition , Iowa State University Press/Ames, SB 185.7.P63, p
369-387.
• Chaudry, M.R. and Guitchounts,A. 2003. Cotton Facts. Technical Paper
No.25 of the Common Fund for Commodities, International Cotton
Advisory Committe, ISBN 0-9704918-3-2, p158.
• Barut, A. 2004. Türkiye’de Uygulanmakta Olan Pamuk Islah Metotları, Bitki
Islahı Kursu Notları, Nazilli Pamuk Araştırma Enstitüsü Müdürlüğü, 12-
16.07.2004, Nazilli/Aydın, 23s.
• Harem, E. 2010. Pamuk Islahı ve Tarımı, GAP Toprak-Su Kaynakları ve
Tarımsal Araştırma Enstitüsü Müdürlüğü Yayınları, Şanlıurfa, Yayın No: 164,
136s.