Prospects for Molecular Breeding in Cotton, Gossypium spp

Abstract

Conventional breeding interventions in cotton have been successful and these techniques have doubled the productivity of cotton, but it took around 40 years. One of the techniques of molecular biology i.e., genetic engineering has brought significant improvement in productivity within the year of introduction. With cotton genomics maturing, many reference genomes and related genomic resources have been developed. Newer wild species have been discovered and many countries are conserving genetic resources within and between species. This valuable germplasm can be exchanged among countries for increasing cotton productivity. As many as 249 Mapping and Association studies have been carried out and many QTLs have been discovered and it is high time for researchers to get into fine-mapping studies. Techniques of genomic selection hold valuable trust for deciphering quantitative traits like fiber quality and productivity since they take in to account all minor QTLs. There are just two studies involving genomic selection in cotton, underlining its huge prospects in cotton research. Genome editing and transformation techniques have been widely used in cotton with as many as 65 events being developed across various characters, and eight studies carried out using crisper technology. These promising technologies have huge prospects for cotton production sustainability.