ABSTRACT

Plant breeders rely on genetic variation. It is a necessary tool that allows them to continually improve crop cultivars. Currently, there is little diversity among cultivated cottons. Similar pedigrees have lead to stagnation in yield increases and improved fiber traits. One possible solution to this problem is the introduction of new genes from wild accessions from Mexico that have been converted to flower in the United States. In order for U.S. cotton breeders to efficiently utilize these accessions the wild plants should be categorized for their novel genes through backcross introgression into elite lines and genetic marker analysis. This would categorize the beneficial traits that are easily transferred to elite lines, making breeders more willing to start introducing new genetics into the U.S. cotton gene pool. In this research project simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers were used to categorize the introgression of traits from a converted MDN 63 into the elite DES 56.