Tackling GE Adventitious Presence in Cotton Breeding Nurseries: Development of Reverse HT Trait Selection

The purpose of this research is to develop an efficient and accurate screening method that cotton breeders can utilize in their breeding nurseries to help identify, eliminate, and control GE AP. The purpose of the experiment was to determine the best rate and timing of glyphosate to be applied to cotton breeding nurseries so that Genetically Engineered (GE) glyphosate resistant Adventitious Presence (AP) plants could be identified by using the selection pressure of glyphosate. However, the goal was to find a treatment that accurately identifies non GE glyphosate resistant plants via herbicide injury, but that also induces non-lethal injury, allowing non AP plants to continue to produce seed for the breeding process. Two years of RCBD field trials were conducted, one in Lubbock and one in New Deal. Four glyphosate rates were applied at three different cotton growth stages. Data collection included herbicide injury incidence counts, phenotyping accuracy tested with ELISA kit GE trait testing, yield and plant morphology measurements, and multiple harvested seed quality analyses.