Abstract

Yield declines in cotton production, coming from both intrinsic and operational decreases, are a concern for producers, consumers and researchers. Yield improvement with agronomic properties such as early-maturity and superior fiber quality is the priority target of cotton breeders and cotton researchers worldwide. Contemporary cotton breeding has contributed enormously to developing highyielding and early-maturing varieties with improved fiber quality. Other agro-technologies have also contributed to greatly improved cotton yields over the past century. The emergence of “biotech crops,” adopted worldwide by cotton farmers, has further added to cotton yield gains and has brought significant economic benefits for global cotton farming. However, expanding threats from both abiotic and biotic stresses, including global warming and the narrowing genetic base of commercialized cotton cultivars, generate significant concerns and are prompting breeders to develop novel cultivars that are superior to the current (traditionallybred or genetically engineered) ones. To address this, with the development of 21st century “omics’ sciences, a considerable amount of effort has been made to develop large genetic and genomics resources for cotton through the characterization of novel genes of agronomic importance, the development of molecular marker resources and genetic mapping of complex traits, the development of better germplasm and populations, and the decoding of the entire cotton genome sequence. These efforts led to the development of novel breeding approaches, such as marker-assisted selection, genomic selection, virtual breeding …