Cotton mutants with divergent fiber quality characteristics

In the U.S. cotton industry there is a need for improved fiber quality to compete in International Markets. This market demands cotton fibers that are longer, stronger and more mature than the fibers produced by commercially grown U.S. cotton cultivars. From 2003 to 2009, a study was done to select divergent fiber quality traits in mutant populations of TAM 94 L-25 and Acala 1517-99 Upland cotton cultivars known to have good fiber quality. High and low selections were made for micronaire, strength, length, and AFIS maturity. The divergent phenotypically stable lines identified by this process will be ideal for both breeding studies and the development of molecular markers specific for these fiber quality characteristics. The selected mutant lines ranged from a mean low fiber length of 1.05 in. to a high of 1.28in.; low fiber strength mean of 26.6 g/tex to a high of 35.2 g/tex; a low micronaire value mean of 3.5 to a high of 5.1; and low maturity ratio mean of 0.85 to a high of 0.97 across both populations. In 2010, we selected six plants from each divergent line, and increased them to the M7 generation for future testing. This experiment will hopefully result in the development and release of several fiber specific germplasm lines. These highly divergent fiber quality lines will help to create high quality fiber upland cotton cultivars while maintaining high fiber yields and wide adaptation across the cotton growing areas of the U.S.