Progress Developing Improved Texas Upland Cotton Germplasm for Improved Yarn Quality

The cotton improvement program at Texas A&M AgriLife Research headquartered at College Station Texas reported the development of extra-long staple upland (ELSU), Gossypium hirsutum, cotton germplasm in 2008. These germplasm lines were the first developed and released in the U.S. with upper half mean lengths equal to pima, G. barbadense, in the modern era. Other upland cotton germplasm lines with upper half mean lengths equal to pima can be found in the USDA-National Plant Germplasm Collection but those all have obvious G. barbadense parentage while those developed by Texas A&M AgriLife Research do not. The Texas A&M program also has developed and released germplasm lines with fiber bundle strength exceeding 35 g/tex which is approximately 25% stronger than today’s average upland cotton cultivar. The Acala upland cotton program of New Mexico State University has produced upland cultivars and lines with exceptional fiber quality and have been considered the standard for fiber quality in G. hirsutum in the United States. Two of the Texas A&M elite quality strains were compared with Acala 1517-08 for High Volume Instrument fiber traits, Advanced Fiber Instrument System fiber traits, and yarn properties when spun on a ring and vortex spinning frames. TAM 06WE-621 and TAM KJ-Q14 exhibited 40 and 30 % fewer yarn imperfections, respectively, and 10% stronger 30 ct yarn than the Acala 1517-08 control in 2017.