Proactive Breeding for Cotton Diseases Through International Collaborations

When Identifying and responding to a new disease threat, breeders are already behind in the race to find ways to mitigate the effects of the disease and develop cotton cultivars with genetic resistance. A collaborative project between the United States and Pakistan demonstrated the value of international partnerships to identify multiple sources of resistance to cotton leaf curl virus disease in non-commercial cotton and transferring it to elite lines both Pakistani and U.S. farmers. Best management practices to mitigate the effects of the disease, DNA markers improve the efficiency of selection and diagnostic tests to identify the virus were also developed through the project. Lessons learned from this project can be used to create new international partnerships to proactively combat other diseases and several examples will be highlighted.