Cotton breeding in Australia : meeting the challenges of the 21st century

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) cotton breeding program is the sole breeding effort for cotton in Australia, developing high performing cultivars for the local industry which is worth∼AU$3 billion per annum. The program is supported by Cotton Breeding Australia, a Joint Venture between CSIRO and the program’s commercial partner, Cotton Seed Distributors Ltd. (CSD). While the Australian industry is the focus, CSIRO cultivars have global impact in North America, South America, and Europe. The program is unique compared with many other public and commercial breeding programs because it focuses on diverse and integrated research with commercial outcomes. It represents the full research pipeline, supporting extensive long-term fundamental molecular research; native and genetically modified (GM) trait development; germplasm enhancement focused on yield and fiber quality improvements; integration of third-party GM traits; all culminating in the release of new commercial cultivars. This review presents evidence of past breeding successes and outlines current breeding efforts, in the areas of yield and fiber quality improvement, as well as the development of germplasm that is resistant to pests, diseases and abiotic stressors. The success of the program is based on the development of superior germplasm largely through field phenotyping, together with strong commercial partnerships with CSD and Bayer CropScience. These relationships assist in having a shared focus and ensuring commercial impact is maintained, while also providing access to markets, traits, and technology. The historical successes, current foci and future requirements of the CSIRO cotton breeding program have been used to develop a framework designed to augment our breeding system for the future. This will focus on utilizing emerging technologies from the genome to phenome, as well as a panomics approach with data management and integration to develop, test and incorporate new technologies into a breeding program. In addition to streamlining the breeding pipeline for increased genetic gain, this technology will increase the speed of trait and marker identification for use in genome editing, genomic selection and molecular assisted breeding, ultimately producing novel germplasm that will meet the coming challenges of the 21st Century

Benefit of spatial analysis for furrow irrigated cotton breeding trials

Appropriate analysis of plant breeding trials is critical for the accurate assessment of test lines and selection decisions. The objectives of this study were two-fold: firstly, to examine the performance of two-dimensional spatial models based on the first order separable autoregressive process in comparison with randomised complete block (RCB) and randomisation based (RB) models in analysis of cotton breeding trials; secondly, to understand the presence and forms of spatial variations and their association with field layout. The different models were first used to analyse a lint yield dataset from the CSIRO cotton breeding program, which consisted of 96 trials under furrow-irrigated conditions from 1995 to 2002 and Residual Maximum Likelihood ratio test and the Akaike Information Criterion were used to identify adequate model (i.e. dataset-preferred model) for individual datasets. The spatial models fitted 62 trials adequately and outperformed the RB model (31) with the worse being RCB model (3). Spatial variations in various forms were commonly present in trials in which spatial models were adequate, and was dominant in planting row direction. Layouts with more plots in dimensional directions tended to have a higher level of spatial variation. Spatial models offered about 176 % mean relative efficiency over RCB, which was comparable with that achieved by the dataset-preferred models but about 20 % higher than the RB model. Therefore, a routine use of spatial analysis in conjunction with efficient trial designs would mitigate the impact of spatial variations on the yield estimate of cotton breeding trials and improve the accuracy of selection. 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

Jasmonic acid is associated with resistance to twospotted spider mites in diploid cotton (Gossypium arboreum)

The twospotted spider mite (Tetranychus urticae Koch) is capable of dramatically reducing the yield of cotton crops and is often difficult and expensive to control. This study investigated and compared two important plant hormones, jasmonic acid (JA) an