Molecular Breeding of Cotton for Drought Stress Tolerance

Availability of freshwater to crops is declining year by year, so there is a need to exploit genetic mechanism of drought tolerance in crops including cotton. Drought-tolerant cultivars may be tailored if generated data regarding inheritance of drought-related traits to tolerance is practically used. The complexity in inheritance of drought tolerance has been a main reason of slow progress. Although a lot of conventional and nonconventional research work has been conducted for the traits related to abiotic stress in cotton, fruitful field results have not been obtained. There is a need to understand drought stress and mechanisms adopted by cotton against drought stress. These include morphological, physiological, biochemical, and genetic responses in cotton. Identification of the important genes related to drought tolerance would also be a major contribution. The impactful genes and major QTLs could be stacked in a single cotton plant, using gene pyramiding, and this may produce the future cotton plant for upcoming adverse environment.