The University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture has released a breeding line that will expand the genetic base for improving cotton varieties.
“This line has good fiber length and is early maturing,” says 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.”
He adds, “It just misses being a good candidate for a new variety, but it has several valuable traits that public and private breeders can crossbreed into their own breeding lines.”
Bourland says 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 concludes.