U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) researchers have made significant progress in finding genetic resistance to two key cotton pests—the root-knot nematode and the reniform nematode.
Agricultural Research Service (ARS) plant geneticist Johnie Jenkins and his colleagues in the agency’s Genetics and Precision Agriculture Research Unit in Mississippi State, Miss., developed genetic markers for the genes responsible for resistance to root-knot nematode in upland cotton. These genes, located on chromosomes 11 and 14, should help breeders develop new varieties of nematode-resistant cotton.
View the original article here: Newly found genes may lead to nematode-resistant cotton