Cotton Breeding for Fiber Quality Improvement - Industrial Crops: Breeding for BioEnergy and Bioproducts - page 222

Genetic diversity in breeding is facilitated by exchange of genetic material
between breeders or germplasm collections. However, restrictions imposed by
patents on cultivars (GM or not), as well as a desire to protect regional intellectual
property, have made it more difficult to share germplasm between regional pro-
grams or even countries. There is a good case to ensure some exchange between
different programs is possible or for creating partnerships to facilitate this diversity
aim. Access to Australian commercial germplasm from 1998, for example, has
brought in enhanced fiber quality to the USA, particularly in Texas where environ-
mental conditions are similar to those in Australia.
In this chapter, we have highlighted a number of opportunities to ensure contin-
ued improvement in yield and fiber quality of cotton. We have proposed breeding
strategies to limit the negative association between yield and future desirable fiber
properties, and we also demonstrate that molecular approaches to directly altering
fiber properties are possible. Different GM yield and quality traits may need to be
stacked together to achieve a commercial novel fiber, but stacking multiple
transgenes is already becoming a limiting activity in breeding with the existing
herbicide and insect tolerance GM traits. Future breeding will therefore require
novel breeding strategies and/or application of high-throughput marker technolo-
gies to integrate breeding for the presence of multiple transgenes and multiple
conventional agronomic traits.
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