Working group session:
Germplasm and Genetic Stocks
Presentation type:
oral
Authors:
Gore, Michael; Andrade-Sanchez, Pedro; Fang, David; French, Andrew; Hunsaker, Doug; Poland, Jesse; White, Jeff
Presenter:
Gore, Michael
Correspondent:
Gore, Michael
Abstract:
In the past century, cotton has been adapted to the low desert, irrigated production areas of central Arizona. Despite progress, it will be perhaps a greater challenge to further increase the yield of cotton in this period of global climate change and diminishing fresh water supplies. Genetic improvement of cotton via modern plant breeding is the most sustainable and economical approach to address these eminent problems. However, the development of superior heat tolerant and water-use efficient cotton cultivars has been slowed by the polygenic inheritance and relatively lower heritability of economical traits in stress environments. Moreover, there is limited knowledge of the key genes that underpin physiological and biochemical traits that relate to improved productivity under high temperatures and water deficit.
To that end, we developed genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) and field-based, high-throughput phenotyping (HTP) approaches for dissecting the genetic architecture of adaptive traits that are potentially important for increased cotton fiber yield and quality in the southwestern United States. We tested these approaches on a cotton recombinant inbred line (RIL) population (TM-1×NM24016) grown under replicated well-watered and water-deficit treatments in Arizona. We present results from a statistical genetic analysis of phenotypic data that were predominantly collected with tractor-mounted sensors and suggest how powerful modern plant breeding tools can be leveraged in the genetic improvement of cotton.