CYTO-124: A REMARKABLE VARIETY EVOLVED AGAINST COTTON LEAF CURL DISEASE THROUGH INTROGRESSION.

Central Cotton Research Institute (CCRI), Multan, Pakistan has evolved an upland cotton cultivar Cyto-124 through introgression for Cotton Leaf Curl Virus (Begomovirus) resistance. It was developed through crossing [{2(Gossypium hirsutum x Gossypium anomalum) X ³Gossypium hirsutum} x {2(Gossypium arborium x Gossypium anomalum) x ²G. hirsutum]. It was tested for seed cotton yield in varietal trials, and zonal varietal trials at Govt. and farmer fields. Cyto-124 gave 37.1, 19.9 and 22.4% higher yield as compared to three standards MNH-786, CIM-554 and CRSM-38 respectively in varietal trials while Cyto-124 had seedcotton yield of 3075 kgha^-1 in-contrast to 2919 kg ha^-1 of CIM-573 in zonal trials. Cyto-124 produced more seedcotton yield (SCY) than the standards for two consecutive years (2013 & 2014) in National Coordinated Varietal Trial (NCVT). In NCVT during 2013-14, this strain had a maximum yield of 2244 kg ha^-1 compared with 1326 kg ha^-1 of standard variety CIM-573 in Punjab. The virus data taken in NCVT indicated that minimum disease incidence (27.9%) was recorded in Cyto-124 making it the more tolerant strain against CLCuV. The approval of this CLCuV resistant cultivar will considerably contribute a lot in the revival of cotton. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]