Cotton Precision Breeding

Seeds are the foundation of crops. It is the goal of generations of breeders to cultivate excellent seeds with more stable yield and stronger resistance to adversity. With the rapid development of NGS technology, more and more crops have completed the decoding of the whole genome, and more and more genetic loci or functional genes for important agronomic traits have been discovered. Based on this, the breeding technology has been transformed from “breeding by experience” to targeted and efficient “precision breeding”. The achievement of precision breeding needs the combination of precise genetic mapping, high-resolution chromosome haplotyping, high-throughput gene transformation, and gene editing technology and extensive phenotyping. Cotton is the most important economical crop worldwide, providing natural fiber for the textile industry. In past years, cotton researchers have achieved impressive accomplishments in cotton genetic and genomic research. It therefore seems appropriate at this time to bring together some of these progresses. Our aim in creating this Special Issue on “Cotton Precision Breeding” is to display recent progresses in cotton functional gene identification, genome sequencing, genome evolution, and genetic diversity of cotton varieties, and gene editing that will boost the development of new varieties via precision breeding.

Dr. Yan Hu
Dr. Lei Fang
Guest Editors

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• Cotton genome
• Fiber quality
• Fiber yield
• Stress
• Gene editing
• Gene identification and function validation
• Cotton breeding