Fayetteville, Arkansas
June 17, 2004
The
University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture has released
a genetic breeding line that will expand the genetic base for
improving cotton varieties for Arkansas.
- "This line has good fiber
length and is early maturing," said Fred Bourland, Arkansas
Agricultural Experiment Station cotton breeder and director of
the Northeast Research and Extension Center at Keiser. "It
also has good resistance to several diseases and insects."
"It just misses being a good candidate for a new variety,"
Bourland said. "But it has several valuable traits that other
public and private breeders can cross breed into their own
breeding lines."
The cotton breeding program at the U of A has two main
objectives, Bourland said. "First, we develop plant breeding
material that broadens the genetic base for both public and
private cotton breeders.
Private breeders, working for commercial seed companies, don't
have as much freedom to try new things, he said. "We can
afford to look in more detail without the risks the commercial
breeders face. If we don't end up with a new variety, we can
still publish our results and add breeding lines that, though
they may not meet the requirements of a new variety, at least
add useful traits to the gene pool that other breeders can
draw from."
The second objective of the U of A breeding program, Bourland
said, is to push commercial breeders to develop new varieties
that meet the needs of Arkansas cotton producers.
"Commercial transgenic varieties make up at least 90 percent
of the cotton grown today," he said. "We don't have the
resources to develop the transgenic traits producers demand.
But we look specifically for things that benefit Arkansas
growers: disease and pest resistance or stress tolerances that
may not promote volumes of sales for seed companies, but that
help crops thrive in Arkansas growing conditions."
Bourland said commercial breeders often genetically modify
breeding lines from the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment
Station to produce new transgenic varieties. "It's a
partnership between public and private breeding programs that
benefits producers," he said.
For example, Bourland said the U of A is evaluating another
seven cotton breeding lines for possible release. These lines
will be used to develop both conventional public cultivars and
transgenic commercial cultivars.
The Arkansas cotton breeding objectives include resistance to
diseases and pests found in the state, stress tolerance, good
plant growth habits, abundant yield and good fiber quality and
ginning characteristics.
Plant breeding is a team effort, Bourland said. Cotton
geneticist Mac Stewart looks for unique traits in wild or
exotic cotton plants for transfer into promising breeding
lines. Cotton physiologist Derrick Oosterhuis is developing
techniques for selecting plants with stress tolerance.
Nematologist Terry Kirkpatrick screens plants for resistance
to root knot nematode, entomologist Glen Studebaker is working
on resistance to insect pests, and plant pathologists like
Craig Rothrock and others are working on disease resistance.
"We've had to be 'Jacks of all trades' in the cotton breeding
business," Bourland said. "But I think the next generation of
cotton breeders will be more specialized, pushed by advances
in biotechnology and transgenic materials."
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