Improving Resistance to Cotton Leaf Curl Virus (CLCuV) and Supporting Cotton Best Management Practices for Small Farmers

About

PAK-US Cotton Productivity Enhancement Project (2012-17) is being executed in collaboration with ICARDA. It is launching several breeding programs to evolve virus free varieties of cotton in Pakistan.ICARDA has divided the project into 13 different smaller projects and allocated them to some of the best public research departments such as NIBGE, CCRI, NUST, CMBE, Punjab Universty etc. USDA is providing technical support to Pakistani scientists on cultivation of US germplasm in Pakistan.

Impact

Goals

To develop CLCV-resistant cotton variety, in the wake of success in evolving virus-free cotton line from US germplasm

Objectives

To develop CLCUV resistant germplasm for Pakistan using traditional breeding approaches To manage cotton disease IPM techniques by adopting farmer's field school To develop gene constructs and genetically engineered cotton germplasm resources To establish cotton virology and whitefly haplotyping facilitation unit

Impact pathways

The project will screen the resistant and susceptible varieties against CLCuD and will grow resistant cotton varieties. In order to achieve its targets, intensive lab research will be done to develop gene constructs and genetically engineered cotton germplasm resources which will reduce cotton production risk (1.1.2) in the country and increase value capture by farmers (1.3.3) at ground level. Research on CLCUV resistant Germplasm will enhance genetic gain (1.4.3) and is expected to increase resilience of poor & vulnerable communities (3.3.1) against CLCU viral shocks. Moreover, cotton virology and whitefly haplotyping facilitation unit will increase institutional capacity of partner organization (D 1.1) to develop gene constructs, mapping and DNA sequencing and ultimately it will improve capacity for innovation in partner research organization (D 1.3).