An update on conventional and molecular breeding approaches for improving fiber quality traits in cotton - A review

Abstract

The cultivated Gossypium spp. represents the most important, natural fibre crop in the world. India is the only country cultivating all the four cultivated species of cotton. Among the Gossypium spp., Gossypium hirsutum is the most cultivated species in many countries. Breeding for high cotton yield is still the primary goal of cotton breeding programs, but improving fibre quality has become increasingly important. The enhancement of fibre quality traits like fibre length, strength, and fibre fineness is an essential requirement for the modern textile industry. G. hirsutum is characterized by its high lint yield while Gossypium barbadense has good fibre quality. Through a conventional breeding strategy, introgression of useful alleles for fibre quality from wild species and G. barbadense to G. hirsutum will be the effective way to improve the fibre quality traits. The identification of the stable quantitative trailt loci (QTLs) affecting fiber traits across different generations will be very helpful in molecular marker-assisted selection to improve fiber quality of cotton cultivars. In this review, we present an overview of the genetics and conventional and molecular breeding techniques that have been used to increase the favorable fibre quality traits in cotton.

Keywords: Cotton, fibre quality traits, simple sequence repeat (SSR), restricted fragment length polymorphism (RFLP), amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP), quantitative trait loci (QTLs)

African Journal of Biotechnology, Vol. 13(10), pp. 1097-1108, 5 March, 2014