Breeding of a Cotton Immune from Natural Crossing

Abstract

BALLS (“The Cotton Plant in Egypt”, 1912) made the discovery that in the cotton plant, self pollen was somewhat prepotent over foreign pollen, in interspecific crosses between Egyptian cotton (Gossypium barbadense L.) and Upland cotton (G. hirsutum L.). Thus if stigmas of barbadense were pollinated with a mixture of barbadense and hirsutum pollen, most of the ovules were fertilized with barbadense. The reverse was found with hirsutum. The prepotency of self pollen over foreign pollen was rediscovered by Jones some years later in maize, and other plants are now known to follow this rule.