Genotype by Environment Interaction of a Fiber Length QTL Deployed within Several Regionally Adapted Cultivars.

A QTL identified from Sealand 883, an introgression line from the PeeDee breeding program, had a significant effect on fiber length within the population used for testing, but varied depending on the genetic background in which it was deployed. It is the purpose of this project to verify the effect of that QTL, quantify the effect within different genetic backgrounds, within different environments, and describe the QTL by environment interaction using regionally adapted cultivars as background donors. The cultivar parents used in crossing with SL 883 were Acala SJ-4, Paymaster HS-26, Delta Pine 50, and GA 89, representing the arid Southwest, Texas High Plains, Mississippi Delta, and Southeastern US growing region ecotypes, respectively. About 200 F3:5 lines, 100 with the QTL and 100 without, were grown in 5 locations representing these major growing regions.