Facilitating the Use of Wild Species Germplasm for Cotton Improvement via CS Lines

In this talk, the presenter will briefly review the importance of utilizing germplasm pools for crop improvement, methods often used for doing so, and specifically the chromosome substitution (CS) approach. The mechanics of CS-based introgression will be reviewed, and a status report given on the three series of lines synthesized to date.  Several key approaches for using CS lines in quantitative genetic analysis will be described.  Lastly, the importance of screening such lines for a wide diversity of traits will be emphasized and illustrated with a recent example whereby a preliminary screen of CS lines suggests they harbor resistance to thrips.